


Learning Curve

by Talithax



Category: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Complete, Curiosity, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Healing, M/M, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Content, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mission Fic, POV First Person, Secrets, Teamwork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-28
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-21 14:34:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 53,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/901406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talithax/pseuds/Talithax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mission going wrong throws Will's carefully constructed world into disarray when he has to relive a part of his history he thought he'd forever left behind.</p><p>Has Ethan got it in him to both get Will through the mission, and... to get through to him in general?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [5ngela](https://archiveofourown.org/users/5ngela/gifts).



> ~ Narrated by Ethan  
> ~ Self beta'd.  
> ~ Completed, and split over 3 'chapters' to give me time to more thoroughly beta. Comes in at over 53,000 words  
> ~ Written for, and gifted to Gray - who... bravely... offered me the prompt of 'How Will joined IMF'... As this is what happened to come out, my fingers are very much crossed that it lives up to expectations and you like it!
> 
> ~ The moral of this? While I offer no promises or guarantees, I'm certainly not against being offered prompts. I still love these two, and for the time being want to keep writing in this world, so... (While I'd love to be able to say that a... bribe... would actually guarantee success (because... artwork! Artwork of these two, even in chibi form, would make me incredibly happy), sadly I... just can't, because, well, I seem to have a fickle muse and can only ever work on something that manages to call to me in some form... :sigh:: That, however, said, you'll never know if you never try!)
> 
> ~ Enjoy!

============  
Learning Curve  
by TalithaX  
============

 

“Before you feel compelled to ask,” I state as I enter the room and fix Benji with a warning look, “yes, it went about as well as could be expected.”

Grimacing, Benji shakes his head and returns his attention to the laptop screen in front of him. “That good, huh?” he mutters, sighing. “Look, Ethan, I know you don't want to hear this and, yeah, okay, I know what happened to Novak was out of our control, but...”

“You're right,” I interrupt, scowling at Benji as I walk over to the sofa and flop down onto it with a heavy sigh. “I don't want to hear it. So... Keep whatever it is you're thinking to yourself and...”

“I just don't think we should have taken this mission, that's all.” Fully aware, especially given the mood he just has to know I'm in, that he's playing with fire here, the words fall out of Benji's mouth in a rush and the look he shoots me over his shoulder is as apologetic as it is nervous. “I know, I know. It's local, and was never meant to go this pear shaped, but, Will...”

“Don't bring me into it,” Will interjects without looking up from his laptop. “I'm fine. I think I even still have the certificate declaring me fit for duty if you'd like to see it.”

“You don't look fine,” Benji counters, swivelling around in his chair and frowning as he looks Will up and down. “You're paler than I am, which is saying something given that I'm both borderline ginger and a pasty-faced Pom, and, forgive me for stating the obvious here, you're still looking downright scrawny.”

Knowing that things are already bad enough without giving in to temptation and blowing a fuse, I take a deep, meant to be calming – but sadly isn't – breath and, standing up, glare at Benji. He's right, of course, in that Will still doesn't look well and, okay, maybe I was a little hasty in accepting the mission, but now just isn't the moment to be bringing these things up. Not now that everything's gone so spectacularly to shit and, not only do we have to go back to square one, but first we have to – stop squabbling and focus on the problem at hand – settle on just what exactly square one is going to be.

It was meant to be easy. Well, as easy as anything the IMF get involved in at any rate. In fact, it wasn't even particularly out of the ordinary and, if not for the highly secretive nature of the assignment, most likely could have been handled by the FBI. All that we were meant to do was track the target to his meet, identify the buyer and, basically, neutralise the situation by taking both parties into custody and successfully retrieving the all important 'package'.

Easy. A veritable walk in the park, and barely worth our expertise, let alone our time.

The target, Adam Novak, was a nobody, a research grunt from Monmouth Pharmaceuticals in Philadelphia. Granted, he'd very industriously stolen the formula for a particularly nasty nerve agent that the military had had Monmouth quietly working on, but he was no more of a criminal mastermind than I'm an opera singer. Monmouth taking both their connections to the military and their security very seriously, Novak had barely made it to his car with the USB drive containing the formula safely buried in his pocket before the alarm was raised and his every move put under immediate surveillance. Hedging the threat of the formula being out in the open against wanting to know who Novak was working for – who, let's face it, would have to be the far bigger threat – it was swiftly decided that he'd be allowed to make his meet before anyone intervened, and that, courtesy of the military wanting to distance themselves as far as they possibly can from the nerve agent should the unthinkable happen and it end up in the wrong hands, IMF could be the ones charged with cleaning up the mess.

Simple. Basic. A task that could as easily have been done as a training exercise as it could have been handled by rookies.

Follow Novak to his meet, take charge, and... mission accomplished.

A nice, gentle way to ease ourselves back into field work after four weeks of mooching around HQ while we waited for Will to recover from the debilitating strain of pneumonia that he'd succumbed to after our last mission and had seemingly taken so long to recover from. We could have, if we'd wanted to, either taken on a temporary team member or joined different teams ourselves for the duration of his convalescence but, although it wasn't something we ever actually sat down and discussed, we all agreed to remain in D.C. for the duration and sucked up the menial tasks of training or enduring refresher courses without comment. As with most things where Will is concerned, I doubt that he appreciated – or even acknowledged – our noble sacrifice on his behalf, but, regardless of whether he ever accepts it or not, he's an integral part of the team and none of us wanted to go back out in the field without him.

“If you don't take Dr Stanton's word for Will being certified to be back in the field,” I grind out as, narrowing my eyes, I give Benji a dirty look and all but dare him to continue to argue with me, “then take mine. I sat with the doctor while he put him through all the tests and, believe me when I say this, Benji, he passed with flying colours. Will, in other words, has as much right to be in the middle of this fucking mess as the rest of us!”

Again, yes, Benji is actually right in that, in terms of physical appearance alone, Will gives every indication of being far off his game. Pale, and with dark circles under his eyes, he's considerably slimmer than he was a month ago and, not to put a too fine a point on it or anything, honestly looks as though he needs to be safely ensconced in a comfortable armchair with a good book. He did, however, pass all of the doctor's tests and speaking from personal experience here I know that it's close to impossible to fake those sorts of results with the eagle eyed Stanton watching your every move and that there's no way he would have been signed off as being fit for duty if he wasn't. The dreadful, wracking cough that plagued him for close to three weeks is thankfully a thing of the past too and, while he may not look it, I think he's definitely feeling far more like himself again.

“Still think he looks like death warmed up,” Benji mutters under his breath by way of getting the last word in on the subject before shrugging and holding up his hands in a display of mock surrender. “But, okay, fine. When you put it that way, that he's both got your own personal seal of approval and should be suffering with the rest of us, I give up and bow to your superior take on things.”

Satisfied that Benji's now aware that I'm not in the mood to hear his take on Will's health, I give a curt nod and, only just resisting the urge to sigh for the umpteenth time this morning, sink back down on the sofa. “It goes, I'm sure, without saying that the Secretary is not overly impressed with the news of Novak's body being found, sans formula, this morning,” I state, glancing around the room at all three members of my team in turn and finding them, with the exception of Will who's engrossed with whatever's he's got up on his computer screen, looking back at me solemnly, “and our mission, regardless of whether we actually want to accept it or not, is to locate the damn thing before it disappears once and for all. I won't repeat his exact words on the subject to you, but I'm sure you get the picture and the quicker we rectify this mess the better.”

Easy.

It was all meant to be so fucking easy.

Clearly confident that he'd got the formula out of Monmouth without raising any suspicion and that no one was on to him, Novak drove straight from work to the Philadelphia airport and, as he'd had booked for months, caught a flight to Las Vegas. Once there, a cab took him to the Luxor where, as per the on line booking he'd also made months ago, he checked in for three nights. It was all so straight forward and conforming to what, on the face of things, were simply his holiday plans that we – in our infinite wisdom – decided that it would be safe, for the first night, to keep him under passive surveillance. 

Settle ourselves in our suite in the off Strip, Trump Hotel, hack into the Luxor's security and phone system, take control of their cameras and... just sit back and watch without running the risk of spooking him. We had eyes on all entry and exit points to his room, could easily have made it to the Luxor and tailed him if he'd made a move and, despite what happened, I stand by my – 'as team leader, the buck stops with me' – decision to set up base away from Novak and initially take a back seat. He was an out of his depth research grunt, for Christ's sake, not the world's greatest criminal, and if not for the fact either he or his contact possessed the type of computer skills to make Benji green with envy we would have just picked him up at the airport and, after slapping on a mask, I would have gone to the meet myself. Not being able to make heads nor tails out of his mundane, positively boring email correspondence – that all seemed work orientated anyway – however had put paid to that idea, which is why we were having to go down the old fashioned route of tracking him around Vegas in the hope of gate crashing the exchange both whenever and wherever it took place.

Again, it was all meant to be so easy.

An easy, local mission to ease Will back into field work without putting any undue strain on his health and one with enough importance to it to just about make it interesting.

We thought we had it covered.

No. Make that we were confident we had it covered.

After settling in to his room Novak first called room service for a burger, fries and, proving that the sad little man really knew how to have the time of his life in Vegas, a slice of apple pie and a Coke, before picking up the phone for a second time and booking a wake up call for seven in the morning. Our wire taps were in place and working, the Luxor very kindly had a camera covering Novak's door and a security system that Benji claimed was ludicrously easy to hack into and, as far as we could tell, he'd settled in for the night. Room service came and went and that was just that.

The next time the door was opened was when a staff member, after receiving no response to either their wake up call or their knocking, let themselves in and discovered his body, still clad in the same clothes he'd walked out of Monmouth in, lying dead on the bed. While cause of death is still unknown and in the hands of the local coroner, we're all in agreement that he was likely poisoned and that it's clear we're not the only ones who knew he was coming to town. Initial reports coming from the LVPD indicate that his lips were purple and that the burger, with only one or two bites taken from it, was still clutched in his hand. The list of personal belongings in the room logged by the officer in charge of the investigation in to Novak's suspicious death also indicates that the only thing missing is, of course, the only thing we're interested in and that's the Monmouth stamped USB drive with the formula on it. LVPD don't know that it's missing as they never knew he had it on him in the first place, but we do and it's the loss of the formula that's even more damning than Novak's murder. The Novaks of the world, easy prey for the bigger, nastier fish who lure them in with the promise of cold hard cash, come and go, but if the nerve agent falls into the lap of, say, a terrorist, then...

Well, it just doesn't bear thinking about, really.

Especially if all we can do is sit by and idly let it happen.

A closer perusal of the footage recorded of the corridor outside Novak's door shows, although it wasn't immediately obvious thanks to the careful use of wigs, glasses and different uniforms, and actually took Jane noticing of all things the same hideous orange nail polish on her nails, that the staff member who delivered the room service was the same staff member who found his body this morning. Both planned and played out to perfection, she never stepped foot in the room while delivering his food and remained in the corridor while he handed over his tip and wheeled the trolley through the door himself. This morning, however, having a valid reason to enter the room, there's two minutes unaccounted for between stepping over the threshold and making her panicked call to 911. Two minutes which would have been more than enough time to locate and pocket the USB drive. Taking the time to cover all bases, she even hung around to give both her teary report and fake details to the police before walking out through the Luxor's foyer, climbing into a waiting cab, and... disappearing. A professional, in other words. A really fucking... good... professional who, with little effort on her part, has made us look like we were all asleep on the job.

Novak's dead. The formula for the nerve agent, which, from the microscopic bit of information the military have bothered to share with us, is so potent that it makes Sarin gas seem like Nitrous Oxide, is in the wind. The Secretary's pissed because he's going to have to be the one to share with the military that, hey, we've fucked up, and, to be perfectly honest, I feel as though I'd like to do nothing more than bang my head repeatedly against the nearest wall.

All in all, as morning's go, I've certainly had better ones.

Sighing, I run my fingers through my hair and once again glance around the room at everyone. “So... Wanting to be able to offer the Secretary some good news the next time I talk to him,” I murmur with a half assed attempt at a hopeful smile, “please tell me that at least one of you have been able to come up with something to go on.” Fixing my gaze on Benji, who's been tracking our suspect's cab while simultaneously following the LVPD's updates on the case as they come through, I gesture that he can go first and, just on the off chance he's a little slow on the uptake, murmur, “Benji?”

“Nothing you're going to want to hear, anyway,” Benji replies as he returns his attention to his laptop in preference to having to look me in the eye while no doubt sharing yet more bad news. “The cab's bogus, and although I was able to track it from the Luxor for a few miles, it then turns down a side street that, if you can believe it, doesn't have any cameras in it and... uh... I'm still trying, of course I am, but... Well... I haven't been able to pick it up again.”

“And the police investigation?” I query, quickly choosing not to make an issue out of the missing cab because it's not Benji's fault we've been so thoroughly played and nor, sadly, is it going to achieve anything. “How's that progressing?”

“Not knowing what we do about Novak, he's just a suspicious death and a low priority,” Benji responds with a lack lustre shrug. “They've finished processing the room and are now just waiting for the coroner's findings which, given that there were two other murders last night in Vegas, they're not likely to get until late this afternoon at the earliest.”

“Well, keep a watch for when that finally comes through and keep looking for the cab for another half hour or so before moving on to helping the others,” I instruct, shifting my gaze from the back of Benji's neck to Will, who's been going through the IMF database in order to track the movements of those we think would be most likely to be either involved in the theft and sale, or, shifting to the other side of the fence, wanting to obtain the formula. “Okay. Moving on. Will? What have you been able to dig up?”

Looking up from his laptop screen, Will frowns and gives a quick shake of his head. “Nothing,” he states matter-of-factly. “I've found absolutely nothing whatsoever of interest to this case and, having exhausted the usual, main list of likely candidates, I'm about to broaden my search and start moving down the food chain. All of the ones I would have expected to be interested are neither in the States nor showing any signs of movement, and nor are any of their scouts or buyers.” Pausing, he looks me directly in the eye. “You probably don't want to hear this either, but we could of course be dealing with someone entirely new and it might take days of digging before we're able to come up with something.”

“As we don't have days, you're right, I don't want to hear it,” I retort as, effectively dismissing Will, I shift position on the sofa in order to better face Jane and, putting what I pray is more effort into it this time, flash her a hopeful smile. “Will not having come up with the goods in regards to the international market of scum bags,” I murmur, “please tell me you've had more luck with the local fraternity and have something worthwhile to share with us...”

Giving ever indication of being more concerned at my expression than reassured by it, Jane gives me a strange look before shrugging and pointing at her screen. “It may well be nothing, but this guy's looking sort of interesting,” she responds. “He's never been linked to any terrorist movements or even arms dealers, but what, albeit always very much in the background, he does seem to have are deep links to the underground. You know, if there's anything shady going on, from drugs to money laundering to auctions of stolen artefacts, that sort of thing, he always seems to have a finger in it. Normally I'd probably just write him off as a common criminal, but... the fact that he flew in to Vegas yesterday from his home in LA, allegedly to oversee a management change in the club he owns here, it... I don't know, the timing, it... just seems a bit suspicious somehow...”

Although I can't say I really get Jane's interest in the man yet, what I am however is desperate enough for any sort of possible lead I can get and, with this in mind, I stand up and walk over to join her. “Criminal record?”

“Nothing that the authorities have ever been able to make stick, but I get the impression that may have even more to do with having someone on the inside than it does the expensive firm of lawyers he seems to have at his beck and call.”

“Rich?”

“Very. Owns a very successful chain of night clubs which, while they might be gold mines in their own right, probably only accounts for fifty percent of his net wealth.”

“And what criminal low life doesn't love a bit of underground night club action, huh?”

“Well, they have always been a favoured meeting place...” Giving me a weary look over her shoulder, Jane leans back in her seat and, lifting her arms above her head, stretches the kinks out of her body from being bent over a laptop for so long. “Look, Ethan... I'm not convinced this guy's worth the interest I'm giving him either, but... he does have connections, he's in Vegas at the right time and, until anything better comes up at least, I think he's worth further investigation.”

Nodding my agreement – beggars unable to be choosers and all that – I move behind Jane and start to gently massage her shoulders. “You're right. For now at least he's better than nothing,” I reply. “So... Tell me his name and you're plan for... getting to suddenly know him better.”

“His name is Perkins,” Jane responds, flashing me a grateful smile as my fingers work on the knot of tension in the base of her neck. “Richard Perkins. He's fifty years old and...”

“What did you say his name was?” Will demands as, shoving his computer off his lap, he jumps to his feet and hurries over to join us. “Jane? His name. Tell me his name!”

Sharing the kind of look with me that tells me she's got as little clue as to what's going on here as I do, Jane leans forward and points at the photo of a well preserved looking man on her screen. Tall, and clearly fit looking for his age, the man sports the typically LA look of slightly too dark a tan, teeth that are far too white to be natural, blond hair styled to perfection, and a smile that's as fake as a porn star's breasts. Although thankfully dressed in the post-middle age, wannabe rock star, uniform of a black leather jacket, nondescript t-shirt and a pair of jeans that are just that little bit too tight, I can't help but have the mental image of him clad in nothing but red Speedos and running along a beach somewhere a la Baywatch and only just manage to resist the urge to groan.

Be it instinct or simply succumbing to knee-jerk stereotyping, I instantly don't like the look of him though and suddenly can't shake the feeling that this mission is going to get worse before it gets any better.

“Richard Perkins,” Jane repeats, tapping her finger against the photo on the screen as, an unreadable mask taking up residence on Will's face, he takes a step back and folds his arms across his chest.

“As, yes, it is the Perkins I used to know,” he states in a voice devoid of so much as a hint of emotion, “I've got this. Just... Leave him to me. If he's involved in any way or knows anything about the sale of the formula, I... I'll be able to get it out of him.”

“Will?” Following his lead, I take a step back and, positioning myself directly in front of him, give him a questioning look. “Care to elaborate?”

“No. I don't,” Will retorts as, clearly not liking how close I'm standing to him, he takes a couple of extra steps further back. “Just... Take my word for it and let me be. Perkins and I go way back and, particularly given as time is of an essence here, I'm the only one who'll be able to get anything out of him in the limited time frame we've got.”

Shaking my head, I reach out and close my hand around Will's shoulder. “You're not going anywhere without explaining to me how...”

“We don't have time for that,” Will interrupts as, roughly shaking off my hold on him, he walks over to the coffee-table and, swiftly pulling it off his wrist, throws his watch down onto it. “What's more, it's not as though knowing my history with Perkins is going to either achieve or change anything. Listen to me, Ethan. I know him, and I can get him to talk. So... Back off and let me do my job!”

Not liking one iota Will's reaction to this Perkins or the look of resignation that, and I don't think I simply imagined it here, just flashed all too briefly across his face, I shake my head again and follow him over to the coffee-table. “As team leader I need to know...”

“No. You don't,” Will interjects as, retrieving it from his pocket, he places his phone down on the table next to his watch. “I've told you all that you need for the time being and, again, given that the clock's ticking here I really just need to be on the move. Unless Jane can tell me anything different, I suspect I'll be able to find him at his club and that's where I need to be.”

“Fantasia,” Jane confirms with a nod. “Although he's staying in a suite at the Bellagio, their cameras over the main entrance have him getting into his car an hour ago and live feed coming from the parking lot behind Fantasia have the same car parked there now.”

“Then that's where he'll be.” Getting his wallet out, Will pulls two twenties out before dropping it onto the table and shoving the notes back into his pocket. “Like it or not, Ethan, the mission has to come first and I've got to go.”

Reluctantly accepting that he's right, that my curiosity in respect to Will's history with Perkins and concern over what he might be walking into can't be allowed to get in the way of our goal of locating the formula, I snort in exasperation and once again reach out and grab him by the shoulder. “You're not going anywhere without a phone,” I state adamantly as, looking him in the eye, I dare him to argue with me. “Benji, go get Will a burner to take with him,” I add, referring to the stash of backup phones we always carry with us and that can't be traced to anyone, let alone IMF. “I get that you're going undercover but, Goddamn it, Will, you know as well as I do that we have to have a means of contact.”

“Fine.” Glaring at me, Will waits until Benji's tentatively handed him a beaten up looking iPhone before placing it in his pocket and beginning to walk towards the door. “Happy now? I've got your damn phone and, unless you want to waste more time, really think I should now be on my way.”

“So long as you keep my damn phone on you at all times,” I snap, striding in front of him and wrenching the door open, “by all means do the lone fucking wolf thing and just walk out of here playing your cards close to your chest! See if I care!”

“Uh...” Standing up, Jane hurries over to the door and lightly touches Will on the arm as he pauses in the doorway to give me one last narrow eyed and completely emotionless look. “At the risk of further inflaming the... uh... situation here,” she murmurs hesitantly, “Will... Don't jump down my throat or anything, but... Have you looked in the mirror recently? Benji's right in that, well, you do kind of look like shit and... uh... What if Perkins doesn't recognise you?”

Obviously more touched by Jane's concern than my own, Will flashes her a smile that doesn't even come close to reaching his eyes and, placing his hand over hers, gives her hand a quick squeeze. “While I could have happily lived without the pneumonia, looking like crap in this instance will actually help in terms of him being able to recognise me,” he replies cryptically as, gently lifting her hand away from his arm, he walks through the door. “Just... Let me do this my way and I promise that I'll find a way to get back here some time this evening to bring you up to date.”

“Damn right we'll see you this evening,” I mutter flatly, watching Will as, without once glancing over his shoulder, he strides along the corridor towards the elevator. “Seriously, Will. Either you come to us or we come to you.”

“Don't think he heard you,” Jane comments, joining me in the doorway and, indulging in one of her rare, overtly tactile moments, draping her arm around my shoulders. “You know, I love Will like a brother, I really do, but, I don't know, I'm not sure we'll ever truly know him, or whether, for that matter, that he'll ever... let... us know him.”

No longer caring if it's all I seem capable of doing at the moment, I glance at Jane once Will has disappeared into the elevator and sigh. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”

~*~

It pains me to admit this, especially seeing as when I woke up this morning I wasn't even aware of his existence, but in one short hour of research into Richard Perkins I feel as though I know considerably more about him than I do about William Brandt. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say I'd feel reasonably confident of being able to sit down and ghost write the bastard's autobiography. Will, on the other hand, despite having spent close to, if not more than, ninety percent of the past twelve months in his company, I doubt I'd be able to fill more than a couple of pages about. And that would even be using a large font and double line spacing too.

I work with Will, all but live with him while the team's on a mission, trust him unconditionally both to do his job and with my life, and spend more time than I ever really want to own up to thinking about him, but...

Like Jane said when he walked out the door this morning, I'll be damned if I know him.

He does everything asked of him, invariably exceeds expectations, is more than pleasant to be around so long as the conversation never strays perilously close to anything of a personal nature, yet...

While I'd willingly put my life on the line to save his, as I like to think he would his for mine, I barely know more than the mere basics about him.

Thirty-eight years old. Parents moved around the country a lot while he was growing up, but not even constantly having to change schools could stop him from getting into Stanford on a scholarship to study Political Science. After graduation he then started an internship at a prominent Washington paper before... just falling off the grid for six years. Apparently these six years included a stint with the FBI before, at the age of thirty, suddenly appearing on the IMF payroll. He then spent the first six years as an IMF agent working exclusively out of Europe and only purchased his house in D.C. two years ago after the events in Croatia saw him doubting his ability to remain in the field and subsequently choosing to take up a position as an analyst.

I know all of this courtesy of looking into his accessible history. What I do not know, however, are any details about the six year... gap... other than, at some point at least, he was employed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation who, when he shifted to the IMF, saw fit to permanently lock his file. I don't know if he spent the entire six years with them, or whether what he did for them possessed such a deep cover that not even the IMF is allowed to be aware of any of the specifics. Nor do I know why it is he won't ever allow himself to fully relax around us. Even if we're all enjoying a drink – or six – after the successful completion of a long, drawn out mission, he always holds back and never drinks enough to get drunk. While I'm at it, I've never seen him go off with someone for either a no strings attached night of fun or simply just for release either. He... speaks when spoken to, yet only fully engages when the conversation revolves around a mission, occasionally teases Benji or shares a laugh with Jane, but never seems to seek any of us out to just have a chat with, and... I can't help but wonder...

… Is he afraid that we won't like him if he lets his mask slip low enough to show us a glimpse of his real self? Does he just not like any of us very much and only tolerates being on the team because it's a job and it's what's expected of him? Was he once so badly hurt that he can't trust anyone and all of his actions are simply an act of self-protection?

I just... don't know.

Wanting Will to remain on my team though, I've had to come to both accept and adapt to the curiosity I feel for him. Some days the secrecy that shrouds him pisses me off more than others, but... Whatever. It's his life and if he doesn't want to talk about it and wants to go out of his way to keep those arguably closest to him at arm's length, then... So be it. Clearly being stubborn enough not to want to give an inch, all we can do is try to out sit him in the hope of perhaps one day a miracle taking place and he decides that it's safe to open up to us.

Not, mind you, and the less said about this morning's little – 'just take my word for it and get the fuck out of my way' – performance the better, that I'm exactly holding my breath about this happening any time soon.

Will... He's an enigma. I like to think of him as a friend, and I'm proud to have him on my team, but as to what makes him tick? Hell, that's anyone's guess. I've gone through stages of trying to convince myself that I don't care, that if he wants to shut himself off and live his quiet, lonely little life, then that's his look out and his alone. So long as he does his job, it's not as though it's got anything to do with me anyway and, whatever, to each their own and all that. This, the slapping on of the blinkers and doing my best not to care, however, never lasts very long and before I know it I'm back to surreptitiously watching him and mentally crossing my fingers that today's the day he realises that the team's the closest thing he's, that any of us have, actually, got to a family and that he may as well just give up and embrace it.

Needless to say, I'm still waiting for this happen.

Luther, when I made the mistake of, after a few too many beers, whining to him about my new, strangely secretive team mate, decided at first that my... fascination... with Will was simply because I'm a control freak and hate not knowing everything I can about a person, especially one that I need to be able to trust. He then, with that annoying air of arrogance of his that some times makes me think he's wasted at IMF and should turn his skills to becoming a pretentious life coach, went on to state that I'm so used to being admired, if not put up on a pedestal, by my team that I simply can't cope with not knowing what Will thinks of me. As far as Luther was concerned – at this point, anyway – Will was simply indifferent to me and, because he wasn't falling, fawning, at my feet, I wouldn't be content until I knew why.

I... took this on board, finished my beer, calmly told him that he wouldn't have a fucking clue what he was talking about, and... left him to it.

Clearly being far dumber than most people – my adoring fans, that is, the few sycophants who haven't witnessed me screwing something up or haven't been on the receiving end of one of my bad moods, if you believe Luther's rose-tinted opinion on how I'm viewed – give me credit for, I made the even bigger mistake of, a few months later and, yet again, a few too many beers down the track, raising the subject with him again. This time it was after something vaguely... amazing... had taken place and, still flush with my momentary success, I'd – foolishly – wanted to share it with someone.

We'd just finished a mission, a no harder or more difficult mission than usual, and were flying back business class on a commercial flight to D.C.. Will, who was in the seat next to me and, who, for no specific reason, was exhausted, was asleep before the plane was even in the air. Possibly not expecting to nod off so quickly though, he hadn't put the pillow behind his head and, slumping sideways, inadvertently chose to use my shoulder as a cushion instead. If this wasn't astonishing enough – especially seeing as I expected him to immediately jerk awake in shock, if not downright horror at having accidentally allowed himself to do something so... natural – he then, by way of making himself comfortable, curled his arm around mine in order to keep me, his pillow, in place, and slept for seven hours straight. By the time he woke, yawned, realised the position he was in and gave me a positively award winning 'deer in the headlights' look of shock before jerking free and stammering his apologies en route to the safety of the bathroom, my arm was dead and I was dying to go to the toilet myself, but...

I didn't care. Yes, I could have either moved or woken him if I'd wanted to move badly enough and, okay, yes, his reaction – 'oh my God, I'm being molested by the reincarnation of Hitler' – could have been a little less abrupt and horrified, but, really, when all was said and done, I just didn't care. Given that I wouldn't put it past Will's protective barrier to protect him even in his sleep, the fact that he'd obviously felt comfortable enough with me to fully relax and leave himself open like that, it...

It just meant something.

Something small and no doubt ultimately meaningless, but for seven short hours Will had slept against me and... all had seemed right in my world.

So... I told Luther this, and he...

… Forgetting all about his earlier theory of Will getting under my skin because he wasn't interested in me enough to let me get to know him, decided to issue forth with his most far-fetched idea yet and inform me that, actually, what my problem just happened to be was a severe case of unresolved sexual tension. 

I was... obviously... so taken with Will that, subconsciously, I not only wanted to dominate (not physically, just intellectually, he hastened to clarify when I reacted by threatening him with the beer bottle in my hand) him but I also wanted to... fuck... him. If I was so captivated by the fact he'd used my shoulder as a pillow, clearly I wouldn't be able to put my fascination with him to bed until, well, I... had... him in bed.

Just... What the fuck?

Too stunned by Luther's wild, random leap of logic to even get up and stalk off on him this time, I settled instead for waving the waiter over and ordering a double shot of scotch before, both calmly and coolly, getting him on to the subject of his last mission. And, thankfully, possibly knowing that he'd taken things one step too far this time, he gave up on lecturing me about what he – and he alone – was positive my feelings for Will were and not another word on the topic was said. The damage of course had already been done though and, the seed of doubt having been planted, five months on and I'm still both dwelling on Luther's statement and questioning whether... maybe, just maybe... there might even be some truth to it.

There's no question that Will, with his missing six years and fear of anything of a personal nature, gets to me, and, okay, I can't deny that I'm physically attracted to him as well, but... That's it. I don't want to just... fuck... him, and I most definitely don't want to... own, or dominate him. Sure, I'd like to both know him better and for him to feel comfortable enough to doze off on me whenever he liked without freaking out when he woke up, but, really, that'd do. It...

It just would.

Hell, where Will's concerned I'd take anything I could get it.

Will, who's out there doing God knows what with Perkins because – despite being my agent and, I like to think, fond enough of me in his own, overly stoic way – he can't bring himself to trust me with anything from his closed and sealed off past and would rather just go it alone in preference to letting anything slip.

Christ. Is there any reason I can't get him out of my head?

Not knowing how he knows Perkins isn't exactly helping things at the moment either. Perkins never having come to the attention of the IMF before, I can only assume their paths crossed during the missing six years but, despite his file being as thorough as Will's is brief, I'll be damned if I can find the link. FBI records have him being a person of interest in a 2001 investigation focussing on LA's premier drug baron of the time, Steven Masters, but he was never arrested and if Will had anything to do with the case I can't find any mention of it.

I know Perkins likes to surround himself with attractive men though, and that his clubs are known to be a popular pick up point for male escorts which, and let's be frank here, I think I was better off not knowing because it's not a path I actually want my mind to travel down. In his favour, however, is the fact that I haven't seen any indication that he has a violent side and none of his official, legitimate employees seem to have had a bad word to say against him. His clubs are successful, he supports local homeless charities in all the cities he has a presence in and, if not for his underground, criminal leanings, he'd probably be viewed by all and sundry as a good enough guy. Some people just not being able to help themselves though, be it because they're attracted to the darkness and threat of danger, or be it simply because they feel as though they can never have enough money and the positives will always outweigh the risks, he courts the seedy underworld with the same focus and intensity that he does running his clubs.

Do I think there's a chance Perkins knows something about the missing formula? His presence in Vegas, coupled with his ability to turn his hand to anything, has me thinking... Yes. Possibly. Terrorism, let alone bioterrorism, has never popped up on his CV before, but, so long as there's a promise of a fee somewhere along the line, I can't see why he wouldn't put his hand up for getting involved in either the theft or eventual sale of it. Money is money, after all. Plus, if he's addicted to the thrill of proving himself one step ahead of the authorities then this would probably be a big turn on for him.

And, if he's involved, do I believe Will has what it takes to get it out of him? The answer to that one, of course, is... Yes. Definitely. I may not know a single fucking thing about their history together, but I've never had any reason to doubt Will's abilities and trust him unconditionally to do his job. The curiosity – just how the hell do they know each other? – may very well be eating me alive but, there not being anything I can do about it, I just have to suck the frustration up and... wait.

I don't like it. I'm getting antsy, and, even worse than that, have to keep forcefully telling myself that tracking Will's cell and barging in on him wouldn't do anyone any favours, but...

So be it.

That's life.

Besides, waiting and Will, they pretty much go hand in hand. If I'm not waiting to make sense of my – confused, at best – feelings towards him, I'm either waiting for him to show signs that somewhere, deep inside, there's a reasonably normal human being wanting to come out and give... life... a go, or, alternatively, for him to prove once and for all that my fanciful thinking is wrong and that, actually, the way he is, really is just... the way he is. The one thing I am certain of though is that given the choice of him – unknowingly – frustrating the hell out of me and not having him in my life at all, I'll take the frustration any day. Having to wait out the four weeks it took him to recover from the pneumonia was bad enough and I'm thinking now that it was the fact that he wasn't just constantly... around... that made the time drag even more than simply being stuck playing the role of trainer at HQ did.

William Brandt. Through no fault or even effort on his part, just gets under my skin. 

“Uh... Ethan?” The sound of Benji's slightly anxious sounding voice floating into the bedroom and bringing me thudding back to reality, I swing my legs over the edge of the mattress and sit up. “You need to see this. Uh... Actually... No. Need probably isn't the right word to use. So... Uh... Want probably isn't all that great either, so... I don't know. Ethan. Maybe you... should... see this...”

Rubbing my hands over my face, I stand up and, all the time wishing I'd had an actual nap instead of just lying on the bed thinking myself into ever decreasing circles, walk out of the room. “At the risk of asking the obvious here,” I state, giving Benji a pointed look as he hovers, looking as anxious as he just sounded, behind the sofa, “what on... earth... are you going on about?”

“You know that saying, what has been seen can't... uh... be unseen? Well...” Pulling a face, he picks up his iPad from the back of the sofa and uses it to gesture at the suite's flat screen television. “Just... Let me cue it up and you can see for yourself.”

“See what for ourselves?” Jane queries as, dressed in a robe and with her hair still damp from the shower she's just taken, she walks out of her room and, seemingly oblivious to the now almost comical look of dismay on Benji's face, sinks down on the sofa. “Come on, then. You were making so much noise that...”

“Ethan. I was wanting... Ethan... to see something,” Benji interrupts just a tad plaintively as his gaze darts between me, Jane, and the iPad in his hand. “I... I don't know if...”

“We're a team, Benji,” Jane mutters, swivelling around on the sofa to give Benji a – 'just get on with it and don't mess with me' – look, “and I can't imagine there being anything that Ethan's able to see that I'm not.”

Ignoring the beseeching look Benji's shooting in my direction, I shrug and walk over to join him behind the sofa. “She's right,” I murmur, giving his arm a hopefully reassuring squeeze. “If I can see it then so can Jane. So, just get whatever it is up on the screen and let's get this over and done with.”

“Fine.” Sighing, Benji looks down at his iPad and, tapping his finger on it, brings up a frozen image of what looks to be a gaming room in one of Vegas' fancier hotels on the television screen. “Just... Uh... Wanting to do what I could to keep an eye on Will,” he continues with obvious reluctance, “I initiated a program to both pick up and record any CCTV feeds that picked up on him being in the area thanks to recognising the sim in his phone, which... uh... is how I managed to come across... this...”

Suddenly far more interested in Benji's... cryptic... video than I was a moment ago, I grab him by the shoulders and all but literally carry him around to the front of the sofa before pushing him down on to it alongside Jane and, although it's going to be a little crowded with the three of us sitting on it, taking a seat next to him. “Whatever you've got, Benji, just get on with it and hit play,” I order, gesturing impatiently at the television.

“Fine,” he repeats, letting the iPad slip from his fingers and down onto his lap as he slumps back against the sofa. “I didn't want to see this the first time, let alone get to see it again while sitting here in the middle of...”

“For God's sake, Benji!” Jane snaps, managing to sound even more impatient than I'm feeling as she snatches the iPad up from his lap and glares down at it looking for the 'play video' icon. “This is Will you're talking about here, yeah? Will. Mr Straight Laced, not some circus freak who...”

“Yeah, well... Knowing what's coming, it's not me that needs reminding of that,” Benji murmurs as, giving up, he retrieves the tablet from Jane and finally starts the video. “So... Like I told you earlier, after first stopping off at a thrift store and a pharmacy, Will made it to Fantasia, Perkins' club in Vegas, at about eleven this morning. He then...” Falling abruptly silent as I tap his arm and, everything he's just said being news to me, give him an unimpressed look, Benji slowly – if not nervously – turns to face me and frowns. “Uh... Ethan?”

Returning, with no small degree of interest added, his frown, I shake my head and, wishing I wasn't as annoyed by this as I am, mutter, “At the risk of interrupting the flow of your story here, Benji, you never actually told me anything about Will's whereabouts. In fact, I wasn't even aware until now that you were actively tracking him.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Flashing me a sheepish grin, Benji shrugs and turns to Jane. “Maybe I just told you, then. Ooops. I could have sworn I told both of you, but, hey, you know, it's been one of those days.”

“Been?” Jane retorts, bumping her shoulder gently against Benji's. “Try... Is. As we're still stuck in it, it... is... one of those days,” she continues with a dry laugh. “But... Yeah. I definitely remember you telling me about the stops Will took on his way to Fantasia because I was curious as to what he'd have been wanting at the pharmacy.”

“Well, keep watching the screen and all should be revealed,” Benji replies, brushing aside the air of annoyance he can no doubt feel emanating from me as I continue to glare at him in favour of returning his attention to the television screen and the vision of a very active gaming room being displayed on it. “So... Okay. This is the Bellagio, right... Perkins' hotel. And, going by the time stamp, this was captured just over thirty minutes ago which means, give or take a few minutes here or there, Will spent nine hours at Fantasia before... uh... being taken by Perkins back to the Bellagio.” Pausing, he gives me a sideways glance. “Just... Watch.”

“Watch... what?” Falling prey to hiding my growing unease behind the classic defensive pose of folding my arms across my chest, I lean back against the sofa and stare expectantly at the crowded gaming room and its sea of slot machines on the screen. “Benji? You've talked this up so much that, seriously, it had better be good or else...”

“Is that...? Oh my God! It is!” Jane suddenly exclaims, the shock she's experiencing coming through loud and clear in the breathless tone of her voice as, leaning forward, she peers intently at the television. “Is he wearing...? Fuck me. He is. And... Fuck. I'll be damned if it doesn't suit him. Ethan? Dear God, are you seeing what I'm seeing here?”

Am I seeing what she's seeing?

In fact, to quote Jane... Fuck me. Of course I'm fucking seeing what she's seeing and, like her, I can't take my eyes off the screen. I'd even go so far as to say the only reason I'm not babbling incoherently or demanding answers to questions that I just know no one in the room will be able to give me is because my mouth is gaping open in astonishment and I'm not entirely certain I currently have it in me to convince it to close.

Just... Again. Fuck me.

The reason behind Benji's anxiety levels suddenly becoming crystal clear, never in a million years would I ever believe this if not for the fact I'm sitting here witnessing it with my own eyes.

There on screen is Will. Our... always conservatively dressed and never one to want to be in the spotlight Will, dressed in worn, faded black jeans that hug his ass and legs in all the right places and an equally as tight and form fitting black t-shirt, with battered red Converse sneakers on his feet and thin strands of black leather circling both wrists. And, if his outfit wasn't... out of character... enough, black nail polish adorns his fingernails and, just for the, I don't fucking know, cherry on top of whatever his disguise is, black eyeliner applied with a heavy, although skilled hand, circles his eyes.

He looks, not that I'm going to so much as say this, let alone be as vocal in my... appreciation... as Jane is, incredible. Nothing like the Will we both think we know and take for granted, but... Incredible. Seriously fucking incredible.

So incredible, that I'm glad Luther and his smug, know-it-all opinions on everything isn't here to witness my – stunned mullet impression – reaction.

“Just... Shit! Look at him. I... I don't know about either of you, but I never would have even thought he'd have it in him,” Jane continues, her eyes still glued to the screen as, having made their way through the crowd, Will now stands a short distance away from Perkins as they wait for an elevator. “Just look at the eyeliner. If I'd known he was so good at applying it I'd have been making him give me lessons.”

“See?” Benji whispers as, gently digging his elbow into my ribs to get my attention, he both sighs and rolls his eyes. “And to think you were wondering why I didn't particularly think Jane needed to see this. I mean, poor Will. He's never going to live it down.”

“Poor Will,” I grind out, mentally congratulating myself on having regained to ability speak, “has no one to thank for any of this other than himself. If he'd let us know what he was up to we wouldn't be sitting here wasting our time on struggling to get our heads around what we're seeing, and... Damn him! How are we supposed to know what's going on when we don't even know what the fuck it is he's doing, huh?”

It clearly being the day for it, the uncertainty and, to an extent, helplessness I'm feeling is both a considerable cause for annoyance and making me cranky. Maybe Luther's right after all, and I am a control freak, but this, the not knowing and feeling behind the eight ball, is doing my head in. I want to know how Will knows Perkins, I want to know what he's doing and... why he has to look like that to do it, and, perhaps most of all, I want him back here so I can rant at him and demand answers that, for once his life, he's going to give me whether he likes it or not.

“Uh... If you're feeling so... revved up... already,” Benji murmurs, “maybe I should stop this now as... uh... you probably won't want to see what happens in the lift.”

“If there's more,” Jane interjects, reaching behind Benji to poke my shoulder, “screw Ethan's opinion on the subject as I say let it play. Given that my opinion of Will is already forever changed as it is, I doubt...”

“Wanting to save you from going down the 'famous last words' path, here,” Benji comments, wrinkling his nose as, taking my silence to mean the show must go on, he glances at the television, “just... Watch. It's, depending on your point of view, of course, about to get... uh... better.”

“Better?” Jane murmurs, giving Benji an openly curious look as, on the screen, the elevator doors open and, with a quick glance over his shoulder, Perkins steps inside.

“Or worse,” Benji counters, shrugging. “Personally, I'm going with worse myself, but... I just keep telling myself that he knows what he's doing and that he's in control and... okay...”

“He's a fully trained field agent with years of experience under his belt,” I mutter as, unable to keep up my mask of indifference, I lean slightly forward in order to give the television my full attention. “Of course he's okay. He put himself in this situation and I'm confident that he knows how to handle it.”

“Mmm... But it's not just the situation he's handling, it's... Perkins as well,” Benji replies. “Just... I get that you're angry with him for going off on his own, Ethan, but... This. He shouldn't be having to do this...”

“Doing wha...” Falling silent as what Benji's getting at becomes abundantly clear on the screen in front of me, I watch as, after a split second's – invisible to anyone not as trained in body language as we all have to be – hesitation that shows only in the way he straightens his shoulders and draws himself up to his full height, Will commits himself to his self-imposed mission and follows Perkins into the elevator. Then, once the doors have glided shut, the show Benji hasn't been wanting to see again begins in earnest. Perkins, a wolfish grin stretching across his tanned, blandly handsome face, grabs Will by the hips and, spinning him around, propels him back first against the corner of the elevator before lifting him up and balancing him on the wide, ornate handrails. Instead of reacting to this... manhandling... by either expressing anger or attempting to fight him off, Will, with a wicked smile of his own, wraps his legs around Perkins' waist and, drawing him close, initiates a deeply passionate kiss.

“I...” Her earlier pleasure at Will's out of character appearance turning to shock, Jane's hand wafts seemingly unconsciously to her mouth and she slowly shakes her head. “I know it has to be an act and that he's only doing it because he feels he has to,” she murmurs quietly, “but... we really don't know Will at all, do we...”

“No.” Having already seen more than enough, I rub my hands over my face and tilt my head back until its resting on the top of the sofa and I'm staring at the ceiling instead of the increasingly... fervent... display in the elevator. “It appears that we really don't.”

~*~

I know that what I'm doing, sitting here on the sofa lying in wait for Will to return like an over-protective parent waiting for a teenager who has missed their curfew, is, at best... ill advised and, at worst, positively stupid of me. I'm frustrated, on edge, can barely see a thought through to a logical, workable conclusion and, all in all, pretty much feel as though I'm spoiling for a fight. Everything is just such a great big ball of unknown that I can't take it. I can't take the not knowing where we're at with it or the enforced, stuck in the hotel suite, inactivity of the mission. I can't take Will not sharing any details of his past with Perkins, and I sure as fuck can't take what he was doing with the bastard in the Bellagio's elevator.

Oh, and then there's the mere thought of what went on in Perkins' penthouse suite after they lurched from the elevator and, thankfully, disappeared from camera view. Jane expressed pronounced disappointment at this, the lack of 'proper surveillance' in the suite, but, albeit I suspect for entirely different reasons, for Benji and myself it was something of a relief. Benji, because he was concerned for Will and the whole performance was making him uncomfortable. As for me, I simply didn't want to see it. The show in the elevator had been bad enough and, if things went the way they were giving every impression of going, it was probably only – still fully clothed foreplay – the warm up act.

And, some act it was, too.

If, of course, it even was an act.

I don't, after all and much to my increasing chagrin, know anything about Will's relationship with Perkins. I mean, let's face it, for all I know there's actually something between them and it wasn't an act at all. Apart from that almost imperceptible moment of hesitation on Will's part before he followed Perkins into the elevator, it certainly didn't look much like an act. Or, if it was, it was definitely an Oscar award winning performance from Will as God knows he looked like he was as in to it as Perkins did.

It takes a, for the want of a better term, special sort of person to be able to succeed as a field agent. Even though it might go against every fibre in your body or be something you'd avoid like the plague if you were given the choice, you have to be both willing, and perhaps even more importantly, ultimately okay with going wherever the mission takes you. You can't hesitate or give into revulsion and just have to... go with the flow. Be it walking into the unknown without either weapons or backup, or having to seduce someone with the sort of physical appearance or levels of personal hygiene that not even a mother could love, then... You just have to do it. That, and you have to do it to the best of your abilities. You have to convince Mr or Ms Disgusting that you're hot for them and you have to be able to go through with it. It may not be pleasant, in fact it usually isn't and not even drinking yourself into a stupor once it's all over is enough to stop your skin crawling or to numb the memory, but if the mission calls for it then it's part of your job and it's just what you have to do.

An agent of Will's calibre, especially given the mask I'm positive he makes sure he's always wearing and that which hardly ever slips from position, wouldn't have any problems seducing Perkins if he thought there was no other way and that's what it was going to take to get the information he was after. Benji aside, and this is simply because he really hasn't had all that long in the field, we've all been there at one time or another. Advertising agents and film directors the world over know that sex sells. What we know however is that it also... buys. You force yourself to give them what you've made a point of them wanting from you, and in return you hopefully get just whatever it is you're after from them. I can't say I like it, but I've done it and when – sadly, not if – I have to I know I'll do it again.

Maybe seduction was the only card Will had to play. Maybe it fitted into his cover story.

Maybe he actually wanted Perkins.

Either way, I don't know.

And I can't fucking take it.

Control freak or not, I take my responsibility as team leader seriously. It's not only up to me to both guide and take ownership, be it successful or a complete fuck up, of the mission, but the buck also stops with me in respect to my team. Priority wise, their continued safety and well being is right up there with the mission itself. They're my people, my friends, and I have to know what they're doing at all times. I only let Will go off on his own this morning because I trust him and because the way he presented it to me left me with little other option. I'm thinking now though that I should have stood my ground and demanded more answers from him before allowing him go because, seriously, even the bare basics – which is all he would have begrudgingly given me anyway – would have to be better than this, the not knowing any fucking thing and letting my imagination run riot and take me places I really don't want to go.

A soft knock on the suite's door rousing me from my – stupor – slumped position on the sofa, I jump to my feet and walk across the room to open it. I'm so wired, so overflowing with questions that I'll be damned if he's just going to deflect them this time, that it takes all my willpower to simply step back and let Will past. If he surprised, dismayed, or even feels anything at all at finding me lying in wait for him, he hides it well and his expression is as unreadable as it usually is as he nods a greeting and slips into the room. The black t-shirt we'd seen him wearing in the Bellagio clearly not having survived whatever it was that went on in the penthouse, he's now wearing a pale green shirt that would have to be Perkins' as it's at least three sizes too big for him and, like the proverbial red rag to a bull, this just adds more fuel to my already simmering annoyance.

“Ethan,” Will murmurs as, once I've shut the door, I turn around to face him. “I'm actually glad that you're still up,” he continues, glancing pointedly in the direction of his bedroom. “While I've really only come back to have a shower and get some sleep, I just want to reassure you that my cover still stands with Perkins and that I'm in...”

“You're... in?” I interrupt, making no attempt to disguise my sarcasm as, leaning back against the wall, I coolly look Will up and down. “Going on that little... performance... we all so enjoyed watching in the elevator, I would have put my money on Perkins being the one doing the... entering... but, hey, maybe I was wrong.”

Shrugging, Will returns my look with an icy one of his own. “ What can I say,” he states flatly, any feeling he might have on knowing we saw the show in the elevator being kept, as fucking always, well hidden, “other than Perkins always was more of a pitcher than a catcher.”

“So, just like old times, then,” I retort, both taken slightly aback by the way Will chose to go on the defensive and bite back instead of just ignoring my obvious mood and continuing with what he'd been wanting to say, and, at the same time, oddly... delighted... that he's not just going to stand there and take it and is going to give as good as he gets. It's not like Will, which only adds more weight to my growing curiosity and concern, but if this is how he's wanting to play it, then, fine. Having been simmering all day, I'm more than up for a fight.

His eyes narrowing and his expression hardening, Will shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans and gives another shrug. “Oh, you have no idea,” he drawls. “What's more, going on how satisfied he was, I've still got it too.”

“Still got it, huh?” I snap, giving Will the sort of look that he'll have to be able to translate to mean that I'm now seeing him a new, not entirely flattering light. “Seeing as I never even knew you... had... it, let alone that you were worried that you might have lost it, you have no fucking idea how relieved I am to hear that you've both still got it and that you left Perkins with a smile on his face.”

“A smile on his face?” Will echoes, a grim smile of his own tugging on the corner of his lips. “Again, you have no idea.” Pausing, he smirks and shakes his head. “Some skills, you know, not only do you never lose them, but they also seem to improve with age.”

“I take it, then, that Perkins wasn't the only one left with a smile on his face,” I murmur, mirroring Will's smirk as I idly wonder just how far this is all going to go. It's not achieving anything, and I don't like how, under his sour expression of bravado, pale and tired looking Will is, but if this is honestly what it has to take to get him to talk to me then I've just got to keep pushing.

“It takes two to tango, after all.”

“If you've got it, flaunt it, huh?”

“It's always worked for me.”

“Really?” Raising an eyebrow in apparent surprise, I once again look Will up and down and, shrugging, give a snort of disbelief. “Why, William, you must be a man of... very... hidden talents then.”

“At the risk of sounding like a cracked record here, you have no idea,” Will replies just a little smugly as, pulling his hands out of his pockets and rolling his shoulders, he strolls across the room to stand directly in front of me. “Don't pass judgement one me, Ethan,” he adds, looking me in the eye and all but daring me to hold his dull eyed gaze, “and don't knock it until you've tried it.”

“You offering?” I murmur, calling his bluff by both holding his gaze and giving him an appraising look. “I mean, I thought Perkins might have worn you out.”

“If you're not fussy and don't mind used goods, I'm good to go if you are,” Will retorts as he closes the short distance that separates us and, draping his arms over my shoulders, rubs himself up against me. “Come on, Ethan. I haven't got all night, so... If you want to put your mind to rest about my skills, you can have me. I'm all yours.”

Startled, although I make a point of not showing it, by this turn of events, I flatten myself back against the wall and, as my heart rate increases and I begin to feel a little breathless, throw everything I've got into...

… Not giving in to temptation.

Will, with his blue eyes heavily kohled, pale skin and cold, eerily vacant expression, doesn't even really look like the man I'm used to, and I know he neither wants me nor wants to be having to do this, but...

Fuck.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted.

He's more... frayed around the edges and exhausted than he is sexy, and I literally can't even begin to imagine what the day's events have taken – and are still taking – out of him, but it's still Will. Will, who gets under my skin in ways I've never experienced before, and who...

Luther's right.

I want him.

I want to know him, all of him. I want to know his secrets, what makes him tick and what drives him, and I want him laid bare, both figuratively and literally, before me.

What I also want though, and this is actually the most dominating emotion given the surreal nature of the moment, is to protect him, to get through his blinkered, determined head that he doesn't have to go through this, through... life... alone, and, that if he ever truly wants me to be, I'm here for him.

“Will...” Placing my hands flat on his chest, I push him back and scowl. “This isn't a good idea and you know it.”

“It's not about ideas,' Will murmurs thickly as, standing his ground, he leans slightly forward and presses his chest against my hands, “it's about sex. Isn't that what everything always boils down to? Just... sex. Actual... desire... doesn't even have to come in to it. So... Come on, Ethan. If you want to know me like Perkins knows me, like he's... always... known me, this is your chance.”

And yet, even if it proves to be my only chance, I'm not going to, I... can't take it. This broken, empty creature in front of me isn't Will and this... game... has gone far enough. I can't change anything about the day he's had any more than I can change whatever it is in his past that he's hiding from everyone, and I think it's fairly obvious I'm not going to be able to get through to Will any time soon, but... This stops now.

I'd rather just take a step back and leave him to his own stubborn devices than keep pushing him and risk causing him to crack even further.

“I...” Grabbing Will's hands in mine, I shove him back with so much force that he actually stumbles and, shifting away from the wall, stand up to my full height and fold my arms across my chest. “I'm not that... desperate,” I state coldly. “That, and you actually stink.” 

While not a nice thing to say, it's nonetheless both effective, if the wounded, revolted expression that flicks momentarily over Will's face is anything to go by, and, sadly, the truth. I think it's more the shirt he's wearing than Will himself, but the combined aroma of sweat, cigarette smoke, and a particularly heavy, overpowering aftershave emanating from him really is pretty awful. 

“Well, it's your loss, then,” Will comments with a shrug as, with timing as awkward as it is perfect, Benji, dressed in his pyjamas and rubbing sleep out of his eyes, steps into the room.

“Will!” he exclaims, beaming first at Will and then over at me. “I thought I heard Ethan talking to someone and I'm so glad that it's you, that you've made it back.” His smile slipping as he notes how weary Will looks, he hurries over to him and places his hand lightly on his arm. “Will? You don't look so good. Are you okay?”

“I'm fine, Benji,” Will replies, giving me a sour look before turning to Benji and dredging up a wan smile. “Just a little tired, that's all.”

“Then what are you still doing up talking to Ethan, then?” Benji queries, frowning. “You still need your rest and should be in bed.”

“And that, once I've finished bringing Ethan up to speed on what I managed to achieve today, is exactly where I'm going.” Lifting Benji's hand up from his arm, he gives it a friendly, reassuring squeeze before going over to the sofa and taking what looks to be a much needed seat on it. “Actually, Benji, you may as well hear it too.”

As happy to have Benji in the room and, unbeknownst to him, playing the role of referee for us as Will no doubt is, I shrug my acceptance and, on oddly dithery feeling legs, walk over to the armchair just to the left of the sofa. Sitting down on it, I gesture at Benji to take a seat next to Will and murmur, “Now, where were we? You'd just said that you had an... in... with Perkins?”

“My... cover... still standing,” Will replies with a nod once Benji has settled himself next to him, “Perkins was only too happy to welcome me back into his world and, while I won't know for sure until tomorrow, I think there's a fairly good chance that, yes, he is involved in the sale of the formula.”

“Tomorrow?” Benji queries, his frown intensifying as, getting in first, he took the question right out of my mouth. “You mean you've... got to go back to him?”

“If we want to know what tomorrow's lunch meeting is all about, and my gut feeling is that we do, then... Yes. I have to go back,” Will responds with no discernible opinion on this evident in either the tone of his voice or his expression. “He's definitely in town for reasons that have nothing to do with his club and, although he was evasive in respect to what the meeting is actually about, what he did have to say was that it was both a big deal and very lucrative.”

“This meeting, you've got an invite, I take it?” I ask, beating Benji to the prize of asking the obvious this time. I don't like it, of course I don't, but I'm not surprised that he's having to go back in. If Perkins is involved in any way with the missing formula it only stands to reason, regardless of who he thinks Will is and how good his cover is, that he'd be cautious in respect to sharing any information about it with him.

“He'll take me to it, yes,” Will confirms. “In fact, I'm to go shopping in the morning for something... uh... classier to wear before meeting him back at his penthouse in the Bellagio. Perkins, he... likes to display his wealth and he likes to have people around him, so... not only doesn't he have any qualms about adding me to his entourage, but my presence should also be accepted without question.”

“What about us?” Benji replies, glancing over at me as he stifles a yawn. “If you know where the meeting's going to be I can get there first and make sure we have both eyes and ears on it.”

“Know where it's going to be?” Will murmurs drily as he leans forward and rubs his hands over his face. “And make things easy for a change? Sorry, Benji, but... No. I have no idea where the meeting's going to take place. Again, that would be too easy, and we all know from experience that we can't have that.”

Knowing that this is just how it's going to have to be and there's not really anything I can do about it, I stand up and, walking over to the sofa, crouch down in front of Will. “You'll let us know if you find out before hand?”

Nodding, he wearily meets my gaze and I'm appalled by how, up this close, empty his eyes look. “Of course.”

“You're confident that your cover is secure, and that you're safe?” It's a mundane question, one that doesn't even begin to come close to covering everything I want to know, but, accepting that I have to let Will go and get some sleep, I also know that it'll have to do for now.

“I'm... as confident as any of us can ever be when we're undercover,” Will replies, grimacing as he rubs his chest with the palm of his hand. “Sorry. Perkins still being a smoker, my chest seems a little tight from all the smoke I've inhaled. Just... It's okay. Ethan, Benji, I... I'm fine. Having been there before, I know what I'm doing and I... I'm prepared to... go back there. We have to get the formula back, and I think this is the best... if not only... way to go about it, so... Just let me do my job and I'll hopefully be able to get what we need out of Perkins.”

~*~


	2. Chapter 2

~*~

“Pluto to Jupiter. Saturn's just exited the party and should be with you in a minute.”

“Copy that, Pluto,” I reply, placing my mop against the wall and moving closer to the door. “Jupiter to Venus. Have you got eyes on Saturn?”

“Confirmed,” Jane replies. “I also have eyes on both doors and will alert you should a search party be launched.”

“Copy that, Venus. Stand by.”

Plan A, tracking Will to Perkins' meeting by his sim card, having gone by the wayside this morning when he managed to get a text to me stating that there was to be no phones at the meet, I'm currently dressed as a cleaner and lurking in one of the Bellagio's public bathrooms while waiting for Will and hoping like mad that this, Plan B, proves to be a hell of a lot more successful than A was. It should be, and although we didn't have long to put it together, I'm cautiously hopeful that we've covered all the bases – 'closed for cleaning' sign on the door to solve the problem of interruptions, Benji logged into the casino's surveillance feed to both have eyes on everything and disguise our taking over of the bathroom, Jane on the look out should either Perkins or any of his cronies come looking for Will – and that for at least once during this damn mission things are actually going to go our way and work.

I didn't like it when Will's message came through this morning. In fact, I ranted and swore and both pissed off Jane with my temper tantrum and made Benji nervous in the process, but... I'm... okay, now. Well, more or less okay, anyway. I'm calmer now at any rate. More... accepting... that Will is a professional who knows what it is he's doing, and who, regardless of my own personal take on it, is more than capable of doing both his own thing and in his own way. I still don't like it and, yes, if I'm not careful my mind is still capable of taking me down paths I don't want to be on, but, really, that's my problem, not Will's. If he's made his peace with what he's having to put himself through then I need to respect his dedication, not doubt or question it at every turn. He has a lead, a desperately needed one given that the rest of us still haven't been able to come up with anything, that, despite the sacrifices I just know he has to be making to see it through, he's working to the best of his ability, and... I just have to accept that. Will's the one in charge here and, my own concerns aside, I just need to accept it.

Just as I need to get off my high horse and realise that if the table was turned and I was the one with the wherewithal to get the information we required through – to be perfectly blunt and to the point here – sex that, without either doubt or hesitation, I'd be doing exactly as Will is. It's just part of who we are and what we do. He's using his body to get what we need out of Perkins and that's just all there is to it. I mightn't like it, and I doubt very much he's enjoying himself either, but it's nothing out of the ordinary and, again, I just have to remember that at the end of the day this is the job we've chosen to do ourselves and no one's holding a gun to our heads.

When this is all over though, whether he likes it or not, he's got some explaining to do. I don't care that he's had dealings with Perkins in the past, or even that said dealings had to have been of a sexual nature. What I do care about, however, is both knowing my agents and knowing what to expect from them. Benji's an open book that's only too happy to talk about himself should anyone make the mistake of asking. Jane, while not as open as Benji, has no secrets that I'm aware of and, if asked will talk about herself easily enough. Then, of course, there's Will, the original Mr Secretive, and while I mightn't need to know his life story in all of its minutest detail, what I do think I have a right to know about is any aspect of it that might have cause to impact on a mission. He won't be impressed but, as I'm not going to go through this level of uncertainty again, that's just tough. Either he talks to me or, and I really hope it doesn't come to this, he's off the team. I don't doubt his dedication or ability, and, yes, I still trust him, but... It's not enough. I have to... know... him too. At least better than I do now.

The bathroom door opening at last, I watch Will slip into the room and, not wanting a repeat of last night's display of defensive tetchiness, flash him a smile of welcome and, in a light, teasing tone, murmur, “Don't tell me this is your new idea of what a... classy... outfit entails?”

“Not mine, no,” Will replies, glancing down at his outfit of tight black leather pants and fitted, open necked shirt in a vaguely metallic, silvery-grey fabric, and wrinkling his nose. “Perkins, however, took offence at the suit I bought this morning and thought this was more... appropriate... for the occasion. And, no, before you ask, he didn't look particularly impressed when the... clumsy... waiter I accidentally walked in to dropped the glass of red all down the front this... absolutely horrid shirt.” Pausing, Will shrugs and begins to undo the buttons of said horrid shirt as he walks over to the basins. “Personally, as you wouldn't believe how itchy this fabric is, I'm hoping the stain never comes out and it gets relegated to the bin as soon as this is over.”

“That good, huh?” More pleased to see Will, who's still rocking the eyeliner, pale and – if you like sickly – interesting look, than I even thought I would be, I quash my instinctive desire to simply demand an update from him and decide, for a small period of time at least, to work on keeping the moment as light as I possibly can. This is the first time, having erred on the side of caution and remained in my bedroom while he chatted to Benji and Jane this morning before leaving to meet up with Perkins, I've seen Will all day and I just want to make the most of it.

“Good isn't really the word I'd use for it,” Will responds, stripping the offending shirt off and, turning the tap on, placing the large area of fabric covered by the red wine stain under the flow of cold water in order to try to rinse it out. “I have no idea what it's made out of as all it makes me want to do is scratch.”

“Maybe it was marketed incorrectly and it's actually a hair shirt,” I offer facetiously as, noticing that his skin on his back is slightly pink from where the shirt has been rubbing against it, I walk over to join him by the basins and, without thinking, place my hand on his shoulder.

Jerking his head up at my unexpected touch, Will's eyes meet mine in the mirror above the basin and for a split, breath-restricting second we just... stand, frozen to the spot and staring at each other. As... moments... go it's more emotionally charged than anything that took place last night was and I know, by the way his lips have parted and his eyes have widened, that Will's feeling it as strongly as I am.

If we were facing each other, be it the right thing to do or not, I'd kiss him. I'd cup his pale cheeks in my palms and I'd kiss him until we were both light headed and needing to come up for air.

And he'd let me. I can see it, the internal struggle, longing, and desire, in his expressive eyes.

“I...” Swallowing hard, Will gently shrugs off my touch and, lowering his head, focus his attention on his shirt. “Buffalo, more like,” he murmurs shakily. “I think the secret to the material is a smattering of buffalo hair...”

“Given some of the things I've seen walking around in the name of fashion, it wouldn't even actually surprise me,” I reply breathlessly as I take a step back to both give Will his space and to... remove temptation. “Look, Will...” Now mightn't be the moment, in fact, if I had any brains I'd move things immediately onto a safe, mission-orientated footing, but... he's got to know that I'm not angry with him and, even if I can't put it into words, that I... understand. “I'm sorry about last night. I shouldn't have... put you on the spot like that... and I apologise.”

“There's nothing to apologise for,” Will responds with a dismissive shrug. “You'd been cooped up in the suite all day and were just frustrated that you weren't on top of what was going on,” he continues, turning the tap off and wringing the shirt out in the basin. “It's okay, Ethan. You lashed out because you were frustrated and I... uh... lashed out because it was just easier than having to talk about any of this. In fact, I think I'm the one who should be apologising and want you to know that I... I am sorry. I'm sorry for just about everything...” Trailing off, he stares down at his shirt for a moment before stepping away from the basin and making to put it on.

Relieved to have a – 'get out of jail free card' – logical way to swiftly move the conversation on from the emotional equivalent of quicksand that we've suddenly found ourselves circling dangerously close to, I reach out and, with a disapproving shake of my head, snatch the shirt out of Will's hands. “Uh-uh,” I state, shaking the shirt out as I walk over to the hand dryer on the wall by the door. “Given how ill you've been recently, there's no way I'm letting you put on a wet shirt as you'd probably be coughing again within the hour.”

“I...” Frowning, Will joins me by the dryer and, almost as though he's only just become aware of the fact he's standing without a top on in a cold, marble bathroom, hugs his arms loosely around his chest. “Thanks, mom. At least one of us is using his brains here as I hadn't even given that a thought.”

“Your mind's just on other things,” I reply, turning the thankfully quiet dryer on and holding the shirt under it. “Now, seeing as we don't know how long you've got, have you got anything to report from the meeting?”

“The meeting! Shit, sorry. I should have got straight on to that instead of... getting side tracked,” Will replies, his expression momentarily clouding over as he no doubt berates himself for his... lapse in professionalism. “I... Again, I'm sorry. I just don't know what I was thinking or what's wrong with me at the moment.”

Hazarding a guess that what's... wrong... with him is the fact he's trapped himself in a position that he doesn't want to be in and which is already beginning to get to him a little, I nonetheless choose to keep this particular snippet to myself and to simply keep things on track. “The meeting, it was worthwhile?”

“Incredibly,” Will states with both a nod and a relieved smile. “We were right and Perkins is involved in the sale of the formula. In fact, because of his connections he's the one actually brokering the deal.”

“Has he got a buyer yet?” I query, turning the dryer back on again and holding the dampest part of the shirt directly under the hot air.

“That's what the meeting was about and, yes, he has both a buyer lined up and a time and a place for the exchange,” Will replies as, tightening his arms around his torso, he leans his back up against the wall next to the hand dryer. “If all goes to plan, Farid Nadir is going to hand over five million dollars cash to Zeus tomorrow afternoon for the USB drive containing the formula, and the exchange is going to take place in the basement of the Echelon, an unfinished and currently abandoned casino on the strip.”

“Nadir? Zeus?” The names meaning nothing to me, I give Will an expectant look and wait for him to elaborate. 

“Nadir, from what I've been able to gather, is a local buyer for Seif Kattam.”

“Kattam? Why does his name ring a bell?”

“Probably because he's a Syrian warlord with known connections to Al-Qaeda,” Will explains, his gaze meeting mine as his expression clearly indicates that he's as aware as I am of the severity of the situation. “Just... Kattam getting his hands on the formula doesn't bear thinking about.” 

“Great.” Groaning, I give the shirt one final shake before holding it out to Will. “Here. If you put it on quickly it'll still be warm,” I murmur, shifting away from the dryer and going to stand closer to him. “So, okay... Nadir's in town to hopefully obtain the nerve agent for Kattam. What about this Zeus individual though? I don't think I've ever heard his name before.”

“That's because you won't have,” Will replies, pulling the shirt on and, with an unimpressed look, beginning to do up the buttons. “He's new on the scene and, having met him at the meet, a completely unknown factor. A possibly dangerous unknown factor, at that.” Digging his hand into the pocket of his leather pants, he retrieves a small scrap of paper and hands it to me. “While my drawing skills might not be up to what you're able to sketch on your palm,” he murmurs, referring to our first meeting in the back of the Secretary's car in Moscow, “here, meet Zeus.”

Unfolding the piece of paper, I glance down at the sketch of a nondescript looking – neither attractive nor unattractive, short hair, rather close set eyes and thin lips – man on it and give Will a quizzical look. “Zeus?”

“Mmm... Zeus. He'd be in his early twenties at most and... in all the years I've been dealing with people like him I've never, and I can't stress this enough, Ethan, got such a bad vibe off someone before.”

“Really? But he looks so... average.”

“And looks, as we all know, can be deceiving. Honestly, Ethan, this guy has all the hallmarks of a true psychopath. He's doing this for two reasons only. One is cash and the other is solely because he... can. He has the skills to manipulate people, in this case the poor unfortunate Novak, and the computer skills to keep him under the radar. Perkins actually asked if he knew anything about Kattam or whether he cared that the game he was playing could result in the deaths of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people. And...” Pausing, Will gives me an openly worried look. “His response was that he couldn't give a flying fuck, that once he had the cash in his hands his interest in this whole affair was over. The consequences of his... game... mean nothing to him. Even Novak's death was a game to him in that he'd challenged himself to find a master assassin to do the dirty work for him and, once he'd done that and paid for services rendered, he was just... over it. The man's murder meant nothing to him. Hell... I'm no psychiatrist, but if I was I'd be doing whatever I could to get this guy forever locked away in a padded cell.”

“Sounds like a true charmer,” I mutter, not liking the sound of this Zeus one iota. “And, he definitely has the formula, yes?”

“He took possession of it from the assassin after she'd ditched the cab yesterday morning,” Will confirms with a heavy sigh. “Just... Promise me you'll be wary of him. Yes, he's a loner who's both in this alone and probably in above his head given Kattam's involvement, but... don't underestimate him. He's young, unstable and dangerous as fuck. He has no fear, seems to be hyped up on a diet of Red Bull and M&Ms, and while I'm not convinced he actually knows how to use the Glock he's carrying around, the fact that he has it at all is a concern.”

“And again I say... he sounds like a true charmer,” I reply, reaching out and giving Will's arm a meant to be reassuring squeeze. “I hear what you're saying though and promise we'll be careful. Now... Zeus. Seeing as that's obviously not his real name, were you able to pick up anything else from him that might help us dig up a bit more background on him?”

“When he was waving the Glock around, you know, showing us what a big man he was, a receipt from the Luxor fell out of his pocket that could be worth following up on,” Will states, surprising me by placing his hand over mine and, for a second or two, pressing down on it. “If he is staying there, given that that's where Novak was murdered, I don't know if it's a sign of either irony or arrogance.”

“Going on what I've heard about him so far, my vote would be arrogance,” I retort, waiting for Will to take his hand away from mine before pulling it away and shrugging. “Once I get your sketch to Benji though I'll get him onto working through the footage from the Luxor to see what he can find.”

“Good. Hopefully something will come up between now and the meet at two tomorrow afternoon and you'll be able to have a plan in place before going in.” Grabbing my left wrist, Will glances down at my watch and, sighing, pulls a face. “I'd better be getting back before Perkins notices how long I've been missing.”

“What? No!” Not having been expecting this for a second, I shake my head and quickly position myself in front of the door. Having got what we needed from Perkins, I can see no reason for Will to go back in and I suppose, if that is I'd thought about it at all until now, I'd been thinking that if he had been able to successfully come up with anything that, having done his job, he'd then just walk away from his undercover role and return to the team. “Thanks to you we've got the names and the details of the exchange now,” I add agitatedly, blocking Will's exit from the bathroom, “so... Forget it. You've done what you had to do and don't need to go back in.”

Giving me a sad, resigned look which which pierces me to the core and leaves me instinctively knowing that I'm not going to like what's coming, Will slowly shakes his head and murmurs softly, “I wish you were right and I didn't have to go back, but I do. To disappear now would only raise the red flag of suspicion and the stakes are so high here that nothing can be left to chance. Zeus mightn't care if a member of Perkins' crew suddenly disappeared, but Nadir's been around long enough to immediately get a bad feeling about it and, really, the same can be said for Perkins himself. If I disappear barely twenty-four hours after, well, reappearing, he'll have his own suspicions given the... weight... attached to the sale and... we just can't risk it. So, you see, I... I have to go back in.”

“Fuck!” Stalking away from the door, I give the wall of the toilet cubicles a vicious kick before leaning against it and, solely because I don't know what else to do with my hands, running my fingers through my hair. Will's logic is faultless and I can't argue with a single aspect of it. What we're dealing with here is so big and so carefully planned that, as Will just said, nothing can be left to chance. Even if Will is only viewed as Perkins' 'play thing', for him to suddenly disappear would cast a huge shadow over everyone's involvement in the sale and, given that these sorts of people are paranoid enough as it is, it really could just be enough to ruin everything. 

I don't like it though.

I really don't like it.

“Will... I...”

“It's okay, Ethan,” Will interrupts with a small shrug as he goes to stand by the door. “I know what I'm doing and... it's nothing that you wouldn't do if you were in my shoes. That said though...” Pausing, he lifts his head and bites down on the corner of his lip as he gives me a raw, beseeching look. “Please promise me that once you've got the formula you'll come for me,” he adds in quiet, plaintive voice. “Perkins is already talking about being back in LA by the time the exchange is due to take place, so I... I might not be in Vegas when it's over and you'll have to come for me, but I want... no... need to know that you'll come, that you won't... leave me there...”

“Oh God, Will...” Groaning, I walk back over to Will and place my hands on his slumped shoulders. “Of course we'll come for you,” I declare adamantly. “The second everything's finalised here you'll be our only priority and it won't matter where Perkins' will have decided to go from here as we'll find you. Just... The exchange is just under twenty-two hours away, so... Thirty hours. In give or take thirty hours I promise that you'll be back with us and that it will be over.”

“At the risk of sounding pathetic,” Will replies with grim, grateful smile, “thank you. Knowing that you'll be coming helps. It helps a lot, actually.”

“Seeing as you're part of the team and we'd never leave you, of course we'll come for you,” I respond, squeezing my hands tightly around his shoulders. “I... know this is taking a lot out of you, Will, but you have my word that it'll soon be over.”

“Will it though? Will it really?” Pulling away, Will avoids my gaze and puts his hand on the door. “On that note, although I don't want to be saying this, as Perkins has already proven to be an important asset I think my cover probably needs to remain intact in case we need him again, so...” Sighing, he gives me a fleeting, possibly even embarrassed look. “When you come for me, come as the.. the pimp and dominate lover, I've told Perkins I'm in hiding from. If you... play that role when you come in he'll buy it and, although it'll piss him off, it won't raise any flags.”

“Pimp, huh?” As with everything Will's done since he first heard Perkins' name yesterday, telling me that I have to pretend to be his pimp to, solely for the future benefit of IMF, keep his cover intact, is all very logical and well thought out, and... it all just eats at me. When the time comes I'll do it, of course I will, and I'll do it so well that anyone around to witness it will buy it unconditionally, but.. It just sucks. Everything about this Godforsaken mission sucks, and I'm not even going through ten percent of what Will's enduring.

Nodding, Will lowers his head and makes to open the door. “And my name's Billy...”

“Well... Billy, rest assured that your asshole of a pimp will be coming for you before you know it.”

~*~

“I know what you're thinking, Ethan,” Jane comments from the front passenger seat as she swivels around to peer at me over the top of her dark sunglasses, “and, seriously, I'm telling you now, you don't want to so much as... think... of even bothering to say it.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” I retort, giving Jane a dismissive look as I return my attention to the sea of going nowhere fast traffic outside my backseat window. “I'm not thinking anything.”

“So you're not sitting there wanting to unleash a rant directed at either the traffic or, seeing as he's the one driving and subsequently can probably be held somehow responsible, Benji for the fact we don't exactly appear to be getting anywhere?” Jane replies, hiding her own growing impatience behind a cool, almost amused tone. “Pull the other leg, Ethan,” she adds with a snort. “I've been watching you in the rear vision mirror and you're actually... twitching... with frustration and, again, as we're all feeling it too, you just need to keep it to yourself.”

Sighing, I flop – with all the grace, I know, of a petulant child who is only one small step off starting up a chorus of 'are we there yet?' – back on the seat and drum my fingers on my thighs. “Like ranting is going to achieve anything anyway,” I mutter. “Just... Look at it! It's not even fucking moving. Hell, I reckon if I got out and walked I'd still manage to beat you there.”

“What part of... keep it to yourself... didn't you get?” Leaning over her seat, Jane hits me lightly on the knee and shoots me a warning look. “This sucks. I get it. Benji gets it. But... We're at least here in LA now and the ten or so extra minutes we spend stuck stuck in traffic isn't going to make any difference.”

“You're right,” I murmur, more to myself than Jane as I smack her hand away and go back to glowering at the traffic from behind my sunglasses. “What's ten extra minutes when we're already forty hours too late...”

Thirty hours. One of the last things I said to Will before he walked out of the Bellagio's bathroom in order to return to Perkins was that we'd come for him in thirty hours time.

Thirty.

Not...

Seventy.

Seventy – hectic, fucked up and so unbelievably frustrating that I still don't know how I didn't give in to the urge to wrap my hands around Zeus' throat and choke the little bastard until he was lying dead on the floor at my feet – hours have passed since Will went off armed only with the promise that we'd come for him.

It should have been so easy. Zeus, whose birth name is the truly uninspiring Sean Smith and who, at the grand old age of nineteen, is even younger than Will thought he was, should have met Nadir at the Echelon and, in place and ready for them, we should have been able to pick them both up and secure the formula before being on our merry way to retrieve Will from Perkins.

But no.

That would be... too... easy. And God knows we can't have that.

Zeus, who I'm fairly certain is not only a psychopath but also a fucking idiot, decided that he was having too much fun at the Pinball Hall of Fame to bother to attend his carefully arranged exchange with Nadir and instead paid a random homeless kid to go in his place and hand over a cell phone number that he could be contacted on later. This, not exactly surprising, didn't go down all that well with the cautious and professional Nadir who, although it took him the better part of what was left of the day, not only terrorised a description of Zeus out of the messenger but who also managed to track the cell number to the vicinity of the Luxor before putting everything together and deciding that the time had come to take things into his own hands.

Our own time being very much of the essence here, I wanted to intervene and just, because we had both parties under surveillance by this point, take them into custody and be done with it. They were wasting our time, I wanted to get to Will and watching them, Nadir plotting with his henchmen while Zeus, oblivious to the mess his immature arrogance had caused, continued playing pinball, was just... stupid. Really, really stupid. On one side we had a professional, while on the other we had... a little boy who, despite his off-the-charts I.Q. and complete lack of either fear or morals, was – let's be perfectly frank here – out swimming with white pointer sharks while still wearing his floaties and the board shorts chosen by his mother. He'd done well, exceptionally well even, to locate and utilise both the assassin who killed Novak and Richard Perkins to broker the deal with Nadir, but blowing off the meet in order to play pinball was more stupidly suicidal than it was just any mere rookie mistake. While whether attempting to show Nadir who was 'boss' was his – failed – game plan all along is something, given his complete refusal to talk, we'll probably never know, what it did ultimately prove to be was the beginning of the end for his brief-yet-ambitious foray into the criminal world.

The Secretary, not wanting to run the risk of losing the formula again, insisted that we weren't capable of taking down both Nadir and Zeus separately and that we had to wait until they were in the same place as the USB drive. I argued that he was wrong, that I was confident Benji and I could handle Nadir and his men while Jane took care of Zeus, but he refused to listen and was adamant – going so far as to wave the tedious, hardly worth the breath used on voicing it, threat of being disavowed (been there, done that, yet, hey, am still here) at me – that we wait until they'd made the second meet. 

Will being of more concern to me than the Secretary and his idle threat, I was prepared to go my own way and just pick the pair of them up separately anyway when, still seething from his earlier brush off, Nadir called everyone's bluff and cornered Zeus in his room at the Luxor. This of course meant that we had to step in and, amazingly enough, this was one event that actually went our way for a change. Surprised, if not downright astonished by our arrival, neither individual put up much of a fight and we were able to have them cuffed and gagged within seconds. Our interest in Nadir lying more in what he could tell IMF about Kattam, Benji took him back to our suite to wait for the Sweepers to come by and take him back to HQ, while Jane and I stayed with Zeus and searched his room for the USB.

The USB that, surprise-sur-fucking-prise, wasn't there.

And Zeus, like good little psychopath's everywhere, tried his luck at reverting to boring old Sean Smith and, complete with tears and declarations of both innocence and mistaken identities, denied all knowledge of its existence. He didn't know who Nadir was. He'd never heard of Novak or Monmouth Pharmaceuticals. Why wouldn't we leave him alone? We were scaring him. He wanted his mommy. We couldn't do this to him. He had rights. He wanted a lawyer. There was no way he could have done any of the things we were accusing him of.

Blah, blah, sob, sniffle, whine, plead, blah. And... so on and so fucking forth.

As with everything, it was an act. One that would have been far more believable if not for the icy cunningness in the bastard's eyes that was at constant odds with both his miserable expression and teary, repetitive commentary. If I thought it would have worked I honestly would have resorted to good old fashion torture to get the location of the formula out of him. I wouldn't have enjoyed it but, not being able to leave Vegas until I had the USB safely in my possession, I would have done it just to put an end to things. Having had more experience with the truly psychopathic than I care to remember though, I knew that there was simply no point, that there was quite literally nothing we could either do to, or offer Zeus to get through to him. All his hard work had unravelled, and he was no longer in control, but... he just didn't care. So confident of his own superiority, he never faltered from his line of not knowing anything about the formula even though, not that it would have worked, mind you, he could have attempted to bargain his freedom for its location.

Nothing worked and nothing was going to work. Zeus was truly a law unto himself and the more time we spent allowing him to toy with us, the more time Will was stuck with Perkins. If not for Benji, eventually and in desperation, applying a little lateral thinking to the problem we'd probably be still in the room at the Luxor, staring blankly at Zeus and struggling not to give into the urge to simply rid the world of his obnoxious presence once and for all. He was never going to give up the USB, so... we just had to find it ourselves. Benji, in a moment of brilliance, suggested searching the Pinball Hall of Fame – as that's where the asshole had been when he should have been at the Echelon – for it and that, after many hours of hunting, is where he found it hidden under a Star Wars pinball machine.

That was this morning, thirty-six hours after we should have been able to pick Will up. Will, who I hadn't even been able to get a message to explaining our delay because his phone was still in the penthouse at the Bellagio even though, as he'd thought would be the case, he was with Perkins back in LA. We know this courtesy of CCTV picking him, always with Perkins all but glued to his side, at both McCarran and Los Angeles International airports and then in Perkins' Ferrari as it pulled into the drive of his boring, traditional looking mansion. There's been no sighting of him on any footage since and we're hoping against hope that we're just going to find him at the house. If he's not there, and Perkins has managed to move him somewhere without being caught on camera then, seriously, all hell is going to break loose. I'm tired, running on adrenaline, frustration and worry, and Perkins honestly had better not get in my way. I want Will back with us and I'm not going to stop until I've got him. The plan, as per his wish, is to keep his cover and to go in as his dominating, pissed off pimp, but if it doesn't work and I have to threaten Perkins with the full weight of the IMF and what they can do to make his life a misery, then... so be it.

“We're about fifteen minutes out from the house now,” Benji announces as he brings our hire car, a black Mercedes with the sort of tinted windows that people can't see into and a 'gangster' vibe that I'm hoping helps sell our cover, to yet another stop at yet another red light. “Do you want me to call in the order now?”

I nod, relieved that, better late than never, we're nearly there. “Do it,” I confirm. “Not trusting this damn traffic though, make it for in thirty minutes time. You know, just to make sure we're in place in time.”

“Will do.”

Only half listening to Benji as he calls in the pizza order we're using to sneak through Perkins' locked gates with, I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and for probably the fiftieth time since we finally climbed onto the plane late this morning, go through our plan in my head. Perkins having been sighted entering his local club, Fantasy, for a lunch meeting at midday, his mansion should hopefully be empty save for a security or body guard or two, a couple of domestic staff who it should be safe to assume won't get in our way, and, somewhere in one of the twenty or so rooms, Will. This, the lack of Perkins, doesn't mean that we can slack off though as the staff that are around to witness our show will still have to be able to explain it all to him in suitably awed terms when he comes homes and throws a tantrum open discovering that his... toy... has gone. 

To facilitate this, I'm going to go in with Jane as my... enforcer... while Benji stays, revving the engine and ready to take his foot off the brake the second we're back inside, in the car. We're also looking the part. I'm wearing a black suit that's more flashy and expensive looking than it is classy, and Jane, well, she just looks as though she can kick ass. Skin tight black jeans tucked in to knee-high, black leather stiletto boots, slim line, fitted black shirt with probably one too many of the top buttons undone to display the curve of her breasts, shoulder holster complete with two gleaming Smith & Wesson's, and with her dark glasses and hair pulled back in tight, no nonsense ponytail, she looks the embodiment of a tough female bodyguard and I fully suspect she'll make more of a lasting opinion on the men in the house than I will. 

We have the look down to perfection, we have our entry – fake a pizza order, wait for the delivery driver to come back through the gate after having been told no such order had been made from that address and to no doubt fuck off – and then, once we're inside, all we have to do is rely on both our instinct and training and both find Will and get him out. Jane's number one focus is going to be on controlling the staff, while mine is Will. I find him, fake a display of proprietary annoyance, drag him to the car, and...

That's it.

As far as anyone is concerned his asshole of a pimp will have just barged his way in and dragged him away and, finally, it'll be all over.

Well, the physical side of things will be over.

All the questions I still need answers for, however, they'll still be there and I'll just have to hope that Will's decided he's now willing to give me at least some of them.

“Time to get your game face on, Ethan,” Jane states as she swivels back around in her seat and, after giving my knee a quick poke, gestures out the window at the mansion we already recognise as Perkins' thanks to all of our careful surveillance and research. “We're here and, look, our pizza delivery guy is early. So... Game on.”

“Game on,” I repeat with a thin lipped smile as, immediately more alert than I was a moment ago, I sit up straight and watch through the window as the gate glides open and the pizza delivery guy drives through them and along the curving drive that leads up to the house. “You remember the plan?”

Mirroring my thin lipped smile, Jane nods and runs her hand over her ponytail. “Oh, trust me. I remember the plan. In fact, the only problem I have with it is that Perkins isn't going to be here to see the show first hand.”

“We'll just have to make it memorable enough that those who do get to see it are able to sell it to him when he returns,” I reply, the only reason I'm not agreeing with her wish to have Perkins here to experience our performance as well is because, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure what I'd do to him if we were to come face to face. Be his... interest... in Will be meant with genuine affection or kindness or not, he's still dominating him in his own way and I don't like it. He's taken him in, taken both charge and control of him, and it's not right. “Benji?” I add as, forcefully pushing these thoughts aside, I anchor myself back in both the here and now and the task at hand. “You good to go?”

“Both good, and raring to go,” Benji replies, saluting me in the rear vision mirror. “The second that pizza car has its front bumper by the gate my foot is going to be on the accelerator and we're going to be on our way.”

“Like now, you mean?” Jane states, nudging Benji with her elbow as, already having noticed the return of the delivery car, he nods and puts his foot down on the gas pedal.

Hiding my relief at finally being... properly... on the move behind the hard, expressionless mask I know I'm going to have to keep in place for however long it takes to have Will safely next to me in the backseat of the car, I breathe deeply and – already in character – wait for both Benji to bring the car to a screeching stop by the front of the house and for Jane, in her role as armed backup, to get out first before walking around to open my door for me. It's difficult, staying seated when all I want to do is be on the move already, but, having both discussed the parts we're playing in detail and knowing that I have to give the impression of being so filled with self-importance that the mere act of opening my own door would be beneath me, I know that for a few more seconds at least I have to be patient.

This, after all, is what we do.

Taking on a role to achieve our goal.

And, because we have to be, we're good at it.

Really good.

Opening the door, Jane leans in to offer me her hand and, her expression as hard and as blank as I know mine is, murmurs matter-of-factly, “Think positive. He'll be here.”

“And if he's not, we're going to straight to Fantasy where I'm going to shake Perkins until he hands him over,” I mutter, ignoring Jane's hand and, pushing her aside, climbing out of the car. Broadening my shoulders and standing up to my full height, I gaze over at the house just as, to my great delight, the front door is wrenched open and an overly muscular man holding a pizza box in his hand appears in the doorway to glare out at us. Well, that is he shoots a meant to be menacing glare at me before turning his attention to Jane and, mentally undressing her with his small, deep set eyes, very much liking what – if the leer tugging on his lips is anything to go by – he's seeing. 

Noticing his interest, Jane smirks and, with both a swing in her ponytail and a sashay in her step, strides up to the door and places her hand flat on his beefy chest. “In your dreams, lard ass,” she states icily, shoving him backwards into the house as, giving every impression that I've got all the time in the world, I don't even bother acknowledging him as I stroll through the door and coolly look around the interior-designed-to-perfection-yet-completely-drab-and-boring foyer. 

“What a dive,” I announce, wrinkling my nose and shaking my head with apparent disappointment. “Given all the allegedly wonderful things I've heard about this bastard, I have to say that I was expecting something a little less... Hilton... like.”

“Hilton?” Jane echoes with a harsh, derisive laugh. “I was thinking more along the lines of a Super-8 myself. Just... Fuck. Let's get what we came here for and get the fuck out of here before I take it upon myself to attempt a little redecorating.”

“What the fuck?” It finally dawning on Muscles, the so-called bodyguard that A) we're not nice people and, B) that perhaps he'd better, you know, do his fucking job, he fumbles over retrieving his gun from the small of his not-small-at-all back and has barely managed to get it gripped loosely in his paw before, with another laugh, Jane relieves it from him and has it pointed directly at his forehead. “Hey!” Snorting with indignation at having been so easily bested by a girl – even a smoking hot one that, in his piggy little dreams, he'd still like to give it to – Muscles drops the pizza box onto the tiled floor and swipes half-heartedly for the gun. “Give that back!”

“Tell you what,” Jane states, waving the gun in Muscles' face as, all the time keeping it of his reach, she takes a small step back. “You give us our toy back and I'll... think... about returning yours.”

“What the fuck?” Muscles repeats, his forehead creasing in concentration as he tries to translate Jane's brain teaser into a language he can understand. “If I don't know what your fucking toy is, how am I supposed to give it back?”

Shaking her head slowly, Jane sighs and, grabbing Muscles' broad shoulder, spins him around in order to deliver a shark kick to the back of his knee and send him sprawling down on the floor. “Bored now,” she announces with a feigned yawn as, all the time keeping the gun trailed on Muscles, he, with a lot of grunting and swearing, drags himself into a slumped kneeling position. “Let's just find the useless asshole and get out of here,” she continues in a whiny, petulant tone. “If I'm stuck here much longer I might just have to make my own entertainment out of the lump at my feet and... well... I'm thinking that could get messy.”

Looking down at Muscles, who it just has to be said is suddenly looking a whole lot more nervous than he did only a second or two ago, I shrug and pull a face. “Not worth it,” I murmur dismissively, tilting my head in the direction of the large archway to our left as two women hesitantly walk into view. Dressed in plain black dresses with white aprons around their waists, the women are both Hispanic in appearance and are clearly employed in the role of domestic staff. One, in her early twenties, looks a little apprehensive as she gazes at the gun in Jane's hand, while the other, who I'd put at closing in on fifty, merely gives the impression of having seen it all before and, really, isn't all that bothered by it. 

“Look. More company. How wonderful. Now we can really have a party.” Retrieving one of her Smith & Wesson's from the holster, Jane momentarily trains it on the women before using it to indicate that she wants them to move further into the foyer. “Look. I'm no more interested in you than I am in the sack of shit grovelling at my feet,” she declares, gesturing with the gun that they're to get down on the floor. “So... Just sit on the floor with your back to the wall, think happy thoughts and, trust me, it'll be all over before you know it.”

Nodding their weary, disinterested acceptance, the women do as they're told and dutifully settle themselves cross-legged on the floor with their backs against the wall.

Impressed with Jane's absolutely faultless performance, I make a mental note to give credit where credit is due when this is all over and, confident that she's got everything under control downstairs, am about to move towards the mansion's sweeping staircase when, silently and as though he'd just been waiting for the right moment to make his appearance known, a man appears at the top of it. Tall and attractive, with his fashionably cut black hair, brilliantly green eyes that would have to be courtesy of coloured contacts and expensive suit, the man is clearly the Organ Grinder to Muscles' 'Monkey' and I know that now, at long last, the game is well and truly on.

Nodding a greeting at me, he hides any doubt he's experiencing at our show of arrogance and force behind both a bland smile and an unflappable expression and, pulling an iPhone out of his pocket, starts to walk down the stairs. “Is there anything I can do to help?” he offers politely in an English accent so polished that I just know it has to be fake and has probably even taken hundreds of hours of practice to perfect. “Or would you perhaps prefer I get Richard on the phone and...”

“What I'd prefer,” I drawl, bounding up the stairs to meet him at the halfway point and, after snatching the iPhone out of his hand, dropping it onto the step and slamming my foot down onto it, “is to just get my Goddamn property back so we can get the fuck out of here. So...” Trailing off, I push the man back against the wall and, resting my arm across his chest, lean in close enough to breathe all over his handsome, in an old fashioned movie star way, face as I threaten him. “Take me to him and I'll consider not... leaving you as my calling card.”

“And... who exactly are you talking about?” he queries politely as his artificially emerald eyes, kohled like Will's were in Vegas and obviously a look that floats Perkins' boat, gaze defiantly into my sunglasses. “If you could perhaps be a little clearer in your... demands?”

Scowling, I press more of my weight against the man, and gesture at the top of my head with my free hand. “About my height,” I mutter, “docile, and...” Pausing, I suddenly drop my hand and, grabbing the man's crotch, give it a good, hard, squeeze. “Good for only one thing,” I finish with a smirk as, keeping my hand locked around his cock, I begin to feel it twitch and harden. “Hmm... The same thing I'm thinking you yourself may well be good at,” I add smugly. “So, tell me, do you know who I'm talking about yet?”

Swallowing hard and looking far more flushed and less assured of himself than he did a second ago, the man nods slowly as his gaze slides up towards the landing. “Billy,” he gasps, pushing against my hand. “You're talking about Billy...”

“Ah... That's right, he has a name, doesn't he...” Sighing, I affect an expression of – 'well I never' – surprise and, no doubt to his great disappointment, let go of his cock in order to close both my hands around his shoulders. “Billy. Yes. I want you to take me to Billy.”

“But... Richard... You've got no right...” His mind no more able to cope with what's going on than Muscles' was, he fails in his attempts to speak coherently and settles instead for staring at me blankly.

“Fuck Richard!” I snarl, spinning him around by the shoulders and propelling him up the stairs in front of me. “Your beloved Richard... took something of mine and I want him back!” Reaching the top of the stairs, I give up my grip on his shoulders and, spinning him around again, slam him back first against the wall. “Alternatively...” Giving him an appraising look, I smirk and, slowly looking him up and down, let my gaze linger on his crotch. “Seeing as you've clearly got your own uses, perhaps I should just go tit for tat and take you with me instead...”

“What? No!” Falling hook, line and sinker for my act, he squirms away from me and begins to walk towards the only closed door to lead off the landing. “I don't know who you think you are, but...”

“What I'm going to be,” I mutter, cutting him off as I stalk after him, “is your worst fucking nightmare if you don't give me what I'm here for. So... Billy. Now!”

“While I'd... love... to help you,” the man, who apparently wants to play the defiant card to the bitter end, grinds out, pointing to the door, “the door's locked and Richard's the only one who has a key.”

My mood immediately taking a turn for the worse at the thought of Will being kept behind a locked door, I flash the man a glacial smile and, while he's still just staring at me wide-eyed, deliver such a heavy kick to the door that it flies both open and off its hinges with a bang. “No key, no problem,” I comment, grabbing the man by the arm and dragging him into the pitch black room with me. Keeping a tight hold on him, I grope along the wall for the light switch and, finding it, flip it on. A golden glow immediately bathing the room in light, I take in the sight before me and, as a low growl rises in my throat and slips past my lips, slam the man with such force against the wall that it leaves him both gasping for breath and struggling to remain upright.

The room itself, just like the foyer, is unremarkable. A bedroom decked out in brown, beige, and gold, and which wouldn't look out of place in a hotel. The drapes are drawn, the furniture is standard for a bedroom, an open door leads into an en suite and... there's nothing out of the ordinary about it at all. Nothing, that is, except for the naked man lying on his side and sprawled diagonally across the unmade bed. Will. With his knees bent and his left hand under his cheek while his forehead rests, pillowed on his outstretched right arm. Semi-conscious at best, it's glaringly obvious by the pink, almost bruised colour of his butt and upper thighs that he's been beaten and, honestly, the sight of him like this is enough to make me literally see red. I... deliberately didn't have any expectations, or even... thoughts... in respect to how I'd find him, but this... This is unexpected. Unexpected and... beyond infuriating.

“Right now,” I hiss, once again pressing my weight against the Organ Grinder's chest as I feign a disgusted look in Will's direction, “that exchange of him for you is looking damn good. Just... What the fuck did that bastard do to him, huh? He might only be good for one thing but now, look at him! Now he's not even good for that”

“He... He was caught trying... uh... to leave,” the man stammers, really panicking now as it hits him that no, he's not in control and, no, I'm not kidding around here. “Richard, he... uh... He had to punish him, show him who... uh... was boss and...”

Having heard more than enough, I knock the man out with the brute force of an abrupt head butt directly to the forehead and, as he slumps unconscious down on to the floor, move over to the bed. Fully expecting the room to be littered with hidden cameras recording every single minute of what's going on it, I know that I have to keep the act up, that I can't let it slip for so much as a second, and, because of this I know that I have to be almost as rough with Will as I was Perkins' hired help.

I don't want to be, but I have to.

I have to keep selling the act.

All the time telling myself this, I close my hand around Will's cold shoulder and shake him until he's as fully conscious as he's capable of getting in his current, obviously drugged to the eyeballs state. Blinking owlishly as he slowly, and with no small amount of effort, drags himself into a vaguely upright position, Will looks at me without so much as a hint of recognition on his face and just... waits for me to do whatever it is I want to him. He doesn't know me, he's not afraid of me, and... going by the dull grey of his eyes, he's not even in there.

“Shit!” I exclaim, the emotion coming through in my voice being, this time, more genuine than just part of the act. “A... A right royal pain in the ass you are,” I continue, forcing myself back into character and pulling Will roughly off the bed. To my relief, although he's unstable on his feet and very nearly falls, he remains upright and, gazing at me passively, waits for my next order. “Go on! Move your useless ass. I haven't got all fucking day, you know!”

Prodding him in the shoulder, I propel him in the direction of the door and, after snatching up a large, leopard print mink-feel blanket from the floor at the last second, shove him out of the room. I don't like it but, unable to let my own feelings get in the way of my performance, I drape the blanket over my own shoulder and, with my hands gripping his upper arms, march Will down the stairs naked. He stumbles frequently, but I keep a tight enough hold on him and manage to keep him on his feet. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, I'm suddenly glad that I can't see Jane's eyes behind her glasses as, Muscles momentarily forgotten about, she stares opened mouthed at Will as I parade him, vacant and on display, past her.

“Same old, same old then,” she sneers after a fleeting moment of hesitation. “Still can't keep his fucking clothes on.”

“Oi! You can't come in here and just take...”

Silencing Muscles' ill-advised attempt at bravado by a swift kick to the crotch, Jane rests the barrel of her gun against the side of his head and makes a tsking sound under her breath. “Now, now. We can, and... we are.”

And... Emotion not being allowed to get in the way of an Oscar Award winning performance, I have to go the extra mile and sell this once and for all. When Muscles tells Perkins about me I want him to sound both suitably impressed and... terrified of ever laying eyes on me again.

It...

It just has to be believable.

“You see,” I murmur conversationally as I push Will closer to Muscles and, moving to stand beside him, close my hand in a vice-like grip around his cock and balls, “this is mine. Mine. Not bloody Perkins'. And, in case you're not getting it yet, I don't like sharing my Goddamn toys!” Giving Will, who unlike the other man remains limp, another squeeze, I laugh and direct my next comment straight to him. “Seeing as another thing I don't like is one of my... toys... wandering off, maybe I should just have you neutered, yeah? What do you think of that? Is that what it will take to stop you wandering off?”

Will, despite the pain I just know I have to be causing him, doesn't reply, doesn't so much as fucking blink, and just continues to stare at me through that eerily empty gaze of his.

Howling at the insanity of all of this not being an option, I let Will go, mutter, “I don't know why I bother with you, I really don't,” and, with a nod to Jane, begin to walk him towards the front door. “Come on. Let's get out of here before I do actually decide to take the one I've left upstairs instead.”

“At last!” Jane declares, cocking her head and looking down at Muscles for a second before, with a casual shrug, pistol whipping him and knocking him out cold. “As for you,” she adds, shooting a warning look at the two women as they continue to sit impassively on the floor, “stay where you are for ten minutes then, hey, seeing as I'll no longer care, do what you like.” Once the women have nodded their acceptance, Jane smiles and, with a swing still in her step, joins me by the door. “Let's get the fuck out of here.”

There being no need to reply, I prod Will towards the Mercedes and, after Jane's opened the back door, shove him inside. Throwing the blanket in after him, I loudly state, “For God's sake, as I'm already sick of the sight of you, use this to cover yourself up with,” before joining him in the car and, as Jane slams the door shut, slumping back on the seat.

Over.

It's... finally... over.

I can drop the act and, again, finally, Will can become my number one priority.

Gazing over the back of the driver's seat at first Will and then me and then back again as Jane climbs into the seat next to him, Benji opens and closes his mouth a couple of times before frowning and murmuring with evident surprise, “But... He... He's naked...”

“And now is not the time time for stating the fucking obvious,” Jane comments drily as she mimes a slap to the side of Benji's head. “Now, I'm sure you'll agree, is the time for driving!”

“I... Yes. Of course. You're right.” Not needing telling twice, Benji turns around, puts the car into gear and drives the car out through the thankfully still open gates.

“Well, thank God that's over,” I murmur, turning to Will and finding him still just... sitting there. The blanket having landed on the floor when I threw it in after him, he's made no attempt to cover himself and is just gazing vacantly at nothing in particular in front of him. He doesn't know us, has no idea what's going on, and is so achingly vulnerable and lost that I honestly don't even know where to begin with him. I'm sure his vagueness is predominantly down to whatever drug Perkins must have pumped into him, but... he's gone, he's just... really gone.

Swearing under my breath, I pick the blanket up and gently, with as little actual manhandling as I can manage, wrap it around him until he's both covered and, hopefully warmer. Once I'm done, Will slowly turns his head to face me and in a soft, meek voice, whispers, “Do I know you?”

Any relief I might have felt at him raising the confidence to ask a question being trampled on by the plaintiveness of said question, I bite back a sigh and, as Jane glances over her seat and catches my eye, nod. “Of course you know us,” I reply, placing my hand lightly on Will's now fur blanket covered arm. “I'm Ethan, that's Jane, and the man driving is Benji. We... The four of us, we're a team.”

“Team?” Will repeats, frowning. “I... I don't understand...” Trailing off, he gives a small, lopsided shrug and, apparently suffering from a short attention span on top of everything else, queries faintly, “Am I able to ask where we're going?”

“Of course you can. You can ask any of us anything,” I murmur, curling my hand a little tighter around his arm. “Home. We're going home.”

“Home? We... live together?”

“We don't live together, no,” Jane responds, beating me to it this time. “We do, however, all live in our own homes in D.C.”

“Washington...” Looking far from convinced that we know what it is we're talking about, Will blinks at me and huddles down in his blanket. “I... I have a house?”

I nod. “You do.” Granted, none of us have ever been in it, but seeing as he did begrudgingly let me pick him up from outside it one day, I have at least seen it. “You have your own house, and you have a job with the three of us, and... Hell! Will, I...” Common sense tells me that I shouldn't, that this is a bad idea, but... now that the random, completely out of nowhere and compelling, seed has been planted, I just have to go and blurt it out anyway. “Can I... uh... put my arm around you?”

“Put your arm around...” Falling silent, Will glances at me shyly and looks even more confused than he did a second ago. “Why ask? You... You can do anything you like to me. That... That's why I'm here, isn't it?”

“No... No it isn't why you're here,” I reply both quickly and adamantly as the urge to put a bullet in Perkins' heart once again grows in intensity, “and, no... No I can't do anything to you. I... asked, because I need your permission before I... do anything to you. What happened in the house, it was all an act and I apologise for it. Will... Things aren't as they currently seem. Whatever you're thinking now isn't... you, and it isn't real. I... I promise that things are better, much better, than they seem.”

Shifting, both slightly and cautiously just that little bit closer to me, Will looks down at his lap and whispers, “Promise?”

“Promise,” I confirm, barely getting my hand off his arm in time as, obviously taking my declarations at face value, he slumps against me with a small whimper. “You'll see, Will,” I continue, draping my arm around his shoulder and hugging him to me. “It's over and you'll be back to your usual... stubborn and determined...self before you know it.”

~*~

Sensing, far more than actually hearing the arrival of someone in front of me, I open my eyes and look at Jane as, grimacing an apology, she leans forward and places two bottles of water on my lap.

“Shit. Sorry,” she mutters, giving my knee a quick pat before straightening up and taking a step backwards. “I didn't know you were asleep.”

“Dozing, maybe, but not asleep,” I correct, flashing Jane an easy smile as I gingerly, so as not to wake Will who's asleep next to me and using my shoulder as a pillow, pick the bottles up and place them between my thigh and the arm of the sofa we're sitting on. “Thanks for the water, though.”

“Mmm...” Taking another step back, Jane gives me a funny, possibly even vaguely smug look as the corners of her lips curl up in a small smile and she clearly hesitates over whether or not she wants to share whatever it is she's thinking with me.

“Seeing as we're stuck together on this jet for a good few hours yet,” I murmur, giving her a wry look, “whatever it is you're standing there thinking, you may as well just come out and say it instead of going back to your seat and dwelling on it. So... Come on. You're thinking it, so you may as well hit me with it.”

“Well, okay, then.” Grinning, Jane moves closer and, with a wink, reaches out her hand and ruffles my hair. “But that's only because you're not in the position to react how... I'd otherwise expect you to...”

Almost as amused by Jane's reaction as I am curious in regards to just whatever it is she's currently got going on in her head, I raise my eyebrow in silent question and wait for her to continue.

“I was just thinking how... relaxed, if not, dare I say it, content you're looking,” Jane states, her grin of only a second ago changing to a genuinely warm smile. “In fact... While my first thought was that this is most relaxed you've looked in days, I'm now thinking that it's more likely been... months..”

Unable to shrug – literally – off her strangely perceptive reading of how I'm feeling for fear of waking Will, I don't reply and simply smile up at her. She is right though, bang on the money, in fact. While all may not be perfectly right in my world, it's nonetheless better than it was a few short hours ago and, for the moment at least, my relief at having Will back is so great that it's even overriding the million and one questions I know I'm still, in the not too distant future, going to have to try my luck at asking him.

The mission is over, Nadir and the borderline insane Zeus are in custody, the USB containing the formula for the nerve agent is probably already back under military lock and key, and Will – admittedly with quite a few differences – is sleeping against me just like he did on that flight all those months ago.

I still can't confess to knowing him very well. In fact, I think it's fair to say I actually know less about him now than I thought I did a week ago. But... He's here, and that's all that matters.

“You can try giving me the silent routine or pretending you don't know what I'm talking about all you like,” Jane continues, giving me a coy look, “but I'm on to you, Hunt. Will, he... He infuriates as much as he fascinates you, and you can't sit there and tell me with a straight face that there isn't a thing you wouldn't do for him. He's gotten under your skin big time and, seriously, you may as well just admit it.”

“Enough,” I protest with both a groan and a shake of my head. While she may well be on to something, seeing as I can't make sense of just what Will means to me myself, I certainly don't want to have to listen to someone else's views on the subject. “Any more pop psychology or whatever the hell it is you're going on about and I'll begin to think you've been talking to Luther and he's been sharing his... theories... with you.”

“Luther? What's he...” Shrugging, Jane holds her hands up in a display of mock surrender. “Fine. You win and I'll keep my opinions... even though I know they're right... to myself. And, what's more, I'll even prove this to you by changing the topic.”

“Go ahead. Wow me.”

“I don't know whether it'll exactly wow you, but... it should make you laugh if nothing else.”

“I'm waiting.”

“Seeing as you've had your hands full,” Jane smirks, gracing Will with a fleeting, knowing look, “you probably haven't heard that Luther drew the short straw in respect to scoring the task of escorting everyone's favourite whack job, Zeus, back to D.C..”

Covering my mouth with my hand in order to stop myself from laughing too loudly at the thought of Luther getting stuck with the truly obnoxious and awful Zeus, I look up at Jane and, once I can trust myself not to wake Will with my cackling, drop my hand and grin at her. “I'd like to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.”

“Conversation? More like monologue,” she counters. “Be warned though, Luther's already sent Benji a message holding you personally responsible for both being lumped with such a... menial... task and his suffering.”

“Me? How's it... On second thoughts. Forget it. If Luther wants to blame me for the treat that is Zeus, then, so be it. I'll look forward to hearing his diatribe all about it in due course.”

“Mmm...” Her gaze dropping back to Will, Jane's expression turns serious and, crouching down by his knees, murmurs quietly, “He's asleep, yeah?”

“Dead to the world,” I confirm, glancing down at him myself and, even though I know full well it's only playing into her theory about my feelings for him, use the arm I've got around his shoulders to hug him just that little bit more closely to me. “You saw how he was barely with it enough to get on the plane, yeah? Well, he was out cold even before we'd taken off. I... I think it's for the best though in that the more he's able to sleep the quicker Perkins' cocktail of drugs will work its way out of his system.”

Scowling, Jane strokes her fingers gently in the soft fur of the blanket Will's still wrapped tightly in. “Not that I needed another reason to hate the fucker, but, seriously, mixing his own drugs? What gives with that? I mean, how'd he know that it wouldn't kill him?”

“God alone knows,” I sigh as, unable to help myself, I follow Jane's lead and stroke the blanket covering Will's shoulder. Wanting to make sure it was safe to bundle him straight onto the plane and that we weren't doing the wrong thing by not taking him to a doctor, a quick blood test using one of Benji's many IMF designed tech-toys confirmed that he'd not only been drugged, but that the drugs in his bloodstream were of an... odd... combination. While they're only the interim results and we'll know more once the sample has been studied in far more detail back in the lab, it honestly seems as though Perkins had pumped him full of both Special K, the street name for the animal tranquilliser Ketamine, and some form of anti-psychotic medication whose name I've already forgotten and which acts as a powerful sedative. Needless to say they don't belong together and, really, it's clear now both why he was the way he was at Perkins' mansion and why it is all he currently seems capable of doing is sleeping.

“I still wish you'd dropped me off at Fantasy so I could have shown the bastard just how little I happened to think of him by feeding him his own balls,” Jane mutters sourly, clenching her fingers in the blanket for a moment before abruptly getting to her feet and taking a step back. “Actually...” Pausing, she looks down at me and frowns. “It's not going to change anything, and just about everything about today is all wrong anyway, but... At Perkins', did you... have... to grab him like that? It... It just...”

“If the question was did I... want... to do it,” I interrupt, cutting Jane off as I want to put both this topic and the very much unwanted memory that comes with it to bed as quickly as I possibly can, “then the answer, of course, is no. No. I didn't want to do it. As that wasn't the question though, the answer... unfortunately... is... Yes. I did have to do it. I had to impress on that muscle bound moron at your feet that I meant business and that he... really... did mean that little to me.”

In a sort of sick, ironic way, I look back on all the effort we put into selling our thuggish, dominating pimp act to Perkins' staff and... simply wish that we hadn't bothered. If we'd gone in with I.D. cards flashed and guns brandished, instead of messing around and... proving our cover that I'm thinking now will never have cause to be used again, we could have bundled Will up in the blanket and got him out in both half the time and with at least a little bit of his dignity left intact. Sure, I'm confident that they brought our act, and that, in order to save face, the story being told to Perkins has probably been embellished to make us sound even scarier, but... To what end? Perkins' criminal tentacles stretching far and wide, there's no doubting he'd make a good asset. I get that. I also get logic behind Will wanting to keep his cover in case we ever need Perkins again. I do. But...

I'll be damned if the pair of them are ever going to find themselves in the same city, let alone same room together ever again.

I may not know their history, but what I do know is what Perkins did to Will and... Never again. Not while I have breath in my body.

And that, regardless of any opinion Will might still have to the contrary, is just that.

“I still don't think I could have done it,” Jane replies as she reaches out and gives my shoulder a quick squeeze. “To a stranger, maybe, but not to Will. It... It just didn't seem right.”

“That's because it wasn't,” I respond, placing my free hand over hers and pressing down it, “but, I know you, Jane, and if you felt you needed to you would have been able to do it. We... Will included, we just do what we have. I suspect it got away from him somehow, but don't forget that he willingly put himself in that position, that... he was just doing what felt he had to...”

“Well, I'm just glad that it's all over, that Will's back where, even if he doesn't yet believe it himself, he belongs, and that we're on our way home,” Jane states as, smiling, she pulls her hand away from my shoulder and, with one final glance at Will, begins to walk back to where Benji's sitting closer to the front of the jet. “As for you, enjoy the position you've found yourself in and, for once in your life anyway, don't over think things.”

Murmuring, “Yes, boss,” under my breath, I watch Jane – a very different Jane, in her (or possibly Benji's) ratty looking Reebok sweatshirt, and with her feet bare and her hair loose, than the kiss ass version that terrorised Muscles back at Perkins' – until, laughing at something Benji's just said to her, she sits down in the seat next to his and all but disappears from view. Unsure as to whether I'm glad she's left me in peace or whether I'm already missing her because, now that I'm awake I'm aware that I've got nothing to do and don't really want to fall prey to, as she just mentioned, over thinking things, I've just decided to see if I can get my phone out of my back pocket to send a sarcastic 'enjoying yourself yet?' text to Luther when Will wakes up and blinks at me sleepily.

Half expecting him to immediately freak out at finding my arm around his shoulders, I start to loosen my hold and am about to sit up straight and pull my arm fully away when, with a yawn, he shifts even closer and looks up at me through eyes that are once again more blue than grey. “Ethan?” he whispers in an inquiring tone that thankfully sounds a lot more like 'is that really you?' than it does 'now, I think that's what you said your name was' and which, like the blueness of his eyes, tells me he's slowly starting to feel more like himself.

“The one, and I'm sure most people would be grateful for this, only,” I reply with a sigh as, only too happy to stay in this position for as long as possible, I tighten my hold on Will's shoulders and smile down at him. “Hey there... Feeling better?”

“Define better,” Will responds, frowning as he looks down, no doubt astonished at the sight of the leopard print covering it, at his lap. “Uh... I'm naked under this blanket, aren't I?”

I nod. “That you are. Given how wobbly you were on your feet, and how clear it was that you just wanted to go to sleep, I... Well, I just thought leaving you... as is... was easier. But... Your bag's just over there, if you'd like me to go and get something for you to put on.”

Lifting his head slightly, Will looks around the interior of the jet before giving a small shrug and yawning. “We're en route to...?”

“D.C..”

“Home?”

“Uh-huh. We're finally going home.”

“Mmm... And... How far in are we?”

Glancing down at my watch, I quickly do the math in my head before replying, “Two hours, give or take a minute here or there.”

“In that case,” Will murmurs, pulling the blanket more tightly around him as, with a sigh, he rests his head back down on my shoulder, “moving can wait a little longer.” Struggling to keep his eyes open, he yawns again, and in a soft voice adds, “Ethan... What day is it? I know I should know, but...”

“It's late Thursday,” I interject. “Allowing for the differences in time zones, we should be landing around midnight. Will... I...” Pausing, I look down at Will and wait until, albeit a little vacantly, he's gazing back at me and, because I know I have to, quietly stating, “We were forty hours late, forty hours later than we should have been and... I'm sorry. You have no idea how Goddamn sorry I am that we weren't able to come for you sooner...”

“I... I was starting to think that maybe you weren't coming at all,” Will whispers, closing his eyes and turning his face towards my chest. “That... that this time I really wasn't going to get out...”

~*~


	3. Chapter 3

~*~

Sleep continuing to elude me, I give up on trying to force the issue and, pulling my left arm out from under the bedding, note from the glow-in-the-dark hands on my watch that not even half an hour has passed since I turned the lamp off and lay my head down the pillow. This annoying me far more than admittedly it should, I drop my arm back down on the mattress, sigh heavily and, not that I can see a thing through the inky blackness, gaze up at the ceiling. I should be able to sleep and the fact that I can't and am just lying here with thoughts ticking relentlessly over in my head is, not to put a too fine a point on it or anything, pissing me off.

Couple nothing in Vegas having gone our way pretty much from the moment we set up base in the hotel with the last few days having been relatively full on and with barely a catnap here and there to keep me going, I should be sound asleep and snoring my head off. The mission, although a fuck up, is over and somehow, possibly against the odds, it was a successful. There's no pressure on me to keep going... or to watch my back... or to be busily planning my next move – all of which are very much a given when in the middle of a mission and, let's face it, are enough in themselves to cause anyone to lose sleep – and I'm both confident of my safety and, for a change, actually weary. I should in other words, especially given that once this particular combination of points is in place I can usually – sleep being something you learn very early on as an agent to catch, even if it is only for a couple of minutes, whenever and wherever you can – nod off anywhere, be asleep. I'm tired, I've had next to no sleep this week, and, basically, it's all over.

Only...

That's just the thing. It's not.

The mission is over. We've saved the day again.

And... Then there's Will.

Will, who I'm more confused than ever about and who, seemingly revitalised by the cold night air during the short walk across the tarmac from the jet to the waiting car, is already reverting to... detached and distant form. In one way, as it means the cocktail of drugs is wearing off, this is a good thing. Expected, even. In another way though it concerns me me far more than I want it to. If he closes back down again without giving me any of the answers I honestly believe that I'm now owed, then I just don't know what I'm going to do. I don't want any of what's happened to – make him even worse than he was before – have a lingering effect on him, and of course I want him to go back to 'normal' (and, yes, if the Will I've known for the last twelve months really is 'normal' for him then that is actually what I want him to return to), but, what I also want is to know him. Not every single thing about him, as he's as entitled to his secrets as anyone, but... better. I want to know him better, and I definitely want to know about his history with Perkins. 

Hell, I just want to know him, period.

The night air possessing far more curative properties than I ever would have given it credit for, Will perked up in the back of the car to the point of becoming quite querulous and insisted in no uncertain terms that while he was very grateful for everything we'd done for him, he was now both fine and more than happy for us to all go about our business once we'd dropped him off at his front door. In reply, I told him that that was excellent, that I was really glad he was feeling better and that as, truly, it was no trouble at all, I was going to stay the night with him regardless. Naturally this went down like a lead balloon, and the more adamant – and argumentative – he became the more I dug my heels in and simply kept cutting him off and talking all over the top of him until Jane had to turn around in order to tell us to... shut up, pull our heads in, and... that our bickering was reminding her of her two brothers when they were teenagers.

Will tried, he really did, but, having made my mind up to stay with him in case he had a delayed reaction to the drugs, I wasn't having a bar of it. It was either put up with first a visit and a check up from Dr Bruer, the IMF doctor on night duty, and then my hugely unwanted presence until he was totally in the all clear, or... get carted straight off to the infirmary. Those were his two, non negotiable options. He didn't like it, and huffed and puffed so much that I was beginning to think that maybe he didn't want anyone to see his house for fear of discovering either his secret Barbie collection or the fact that he was a hoarder and could hardly get in through the front door for the mountains of newspapers he'd been collecting for decades. Then, just as Benji, who was driving and needed to know what turn off to take – the one for HQ or the one for Will's house – before it all got too much for him and he succumbed to a nervous breakdown by just doing his own thing and taking us all back to his own apartment, Will gave up and told me that, as I was going to anyway, I could do whatever I fucking liked.

As victories go it wasn't the greatest one I've ever had, but, having had enough of his display of defensive attitude, I was almost as relieved to get it as I was to see Dr Bruer already standing on Will's front doorstep when Benji pulled the car into his driveway. Only too happy to hand my petulant patient off to the doctor, I promised to phone both Jane and Benji should I have any news to share with them, hugged and thanked them for both their hard work and patience, before waving them off as they drove away and then, while Dr Bruer... enjoyed... Will's company in the bedroom, helping myself to a quick tour of his house.

His... perfectly average but curiously unlived in looking house. The furniture is all good quality, the furnishings both expensive and matching, and... it's like a display home. Neat, everything in place, and so devoid of personality that you could be excused for thinking that no one actually lived in it. No photos or personal touches anywhere. No sign of... life... at all, really. I know, as my own home isn't all that much better, that I'm a fine one to talk, but it's not as if I've ever spent more than a couple of nights at a time in it. That, and at least I have a display of framed photos in my private study. Will, though... Unless he keeps his entire life in his bedroom, the only room I didn't get to poke my head in to as he was already in there with the doctor, seems to have nothing. And this, particularly given that he would have spent the majority of the year he spent as an analyst living in D.C. and having to come back here every night, just strikes me as wrong somehow.

Wrong, and quite... sad.

Is he lonely? Are his myriad of issues even more deeply seated than I've ever thought?

Or... Who knows, maybe he's perfectly content with his life and I really would be better off leaving him well enough alone. Everyone's entitled to live the way they want to and for all I know this, both the blandness of his home and the way he works hard to keep everyone in his life at arm's length, could be his own personal version of nirvana.

I can't help but think he deserves better though. I could be wrong, and I know it's not as though some higher entity has crowned me an expert on all things William Brandt, but... Surely he deserves more from life? He's still young, should have many, many years left in front of him, and, I don't know, has to need more than the IMF to give him a reason to get up each and every morning. Again, while I mightn't be a poster child for embracing life outside of work, I still value my friends, indulge my adrenaline fuelled hobbies whenever I get the time and, you know something, I'm generally quite content with my lot. I know, and take comfort from knowing, that I'm not alone and have people in my life I can both trust and rely on, and, what's more, I still know how to have fun.

Which, and I hope I'm wrong, I really do, is more than I think can be said for Will.

Will, with his secrets and his all-consuming need to hide behind his carefully constructed wall, and who I want to know so badly that I'm lying here in his guest bed, with its hard mattress and musty smell that tells me I'm probably the first person to have ever used it, staring up into the darkness and unable to sleep for all the thoughts circling in my head.

Suddenly hearing what sounds like movement in the corridor outside the room, I sit up and, gazing over at the door, wait to see what, if indeed anything, is about to happen. Not having heard any noises coming from the ground floor, I know, even though I haven't seen since he went off with Dr Bruer and just took myself off to bed when it became clear he wasn't going to venture out of his room after the doctor had left, it has to be Will out there and, again, just... wait. If he's made it this far he has to have done so for a reason and I don't want to... scare him off... by letting him know I'm aware of his presence unless I absolutely have to.

Minutes tick slowly by though without anything happening and eventually, as I haven't heard him walk off and can only assume he's still out there, lurking while God alone knows what goes through his head, this gets the better of me and I turn the lamp on before climbing out of bed and walking across the room to slowly open the door. Poking my head through it, I find Will, sitting, hugging his knees to his chest, on the floor directly opposite the door, and, this being just about the last thing I expected, don't know what to do. Standing there, looking pensive or scowling at the door and spoiling for a fight, I could have dealt with, but not this. Dressed in black cotton pyjama pants and a dark grey, v-necked t-shirt, and with his eyes finally clear of eyeliner, he looks both young and so very, very lost that, seriously, I just don't what it is I'm supposed to do with him. The last time I saw him he was glaring at me ominously and no doubt wishing I'd leave him the fuck alone... and I could handle that. I even somehow managed to handle his softly worded confession on the plane about fearing being left with Perkins. This, however, I can't handle.

I can't handle seeing him so... broken, and nor can I handle not knowing what to do.

“I... I can't keep doing this,” Will whispers, giving me a sad look before lowering his head and gazing down at his knees. “I just... can't...”

“Doing... what?” I query as, Will having found the courage to speak first being the kick in the ass I needed to shake off my shock and get moving, I crouch down next to him and waft my hand over his shoulder.

“Fighting... Hiding... Always being alone,” Will murmurs hoarsely as he makes his desire not to be touched known by dropping his shoulder and squirming an inch or two away from me. “I thought I could, but I... I can't. I just can't go on like this...”

“But...” Shifting into a kneeling position, I rest my hands on my thighs and – if at first you don't succeed – try again. “You're not alone. While I get the impression that most of the time you don't want us, that, hell, we might even annoy you, we're... We're still a team and we're here for you. Me, Jane and Benji, we're always here for you...”

“That... That's just it!” Will exclaims, his eyes widening with obvious agitation as, jumping to his feet, he stumbles in the direction of his bedroom. “I do... I do want it and I... I shouldn't! I... I can't!”

Even more confused, not to mention concerned, than I was a moment ago, I stand up and follow Will into the bedroom. “Hey... Come on. What are you talking about?” 

“Just... Forget it.” Coming to a stop in the middle of the room, Will shakes his head and gestures wildly at the door. “Go back to bed and forget I was ever stupid enough to... to... Fuck! I'm clearly still drug fucked and not thinking straight, so... Please. Just forget all about this... whatever this even is... and go back to bed. You've done enough for me already, Ethan, and don't need to be seeing this, so...”

“And you don't need to be going through it either,” I interrupt, struggling to keep my voice both soft and reasonable sounding as I take a slow, cautious step further into the room.

“At least I'm used to it,” Will retorts with palpable bitterness as, shrugging, he sinks down on the edge of the mattress. “Just... Go back to...”

“Just because you're used to it,” I state, talking over the top of him because, really, as much as I might want him to talk I don't want to be hearing this, not now and particularly not without context, “doesn't mean that you can't adapt to something new and... better...”

“Like what?” Glancing up, Will gives me a tired, resigned look and shrugs again. “This... This is as good as it gets. It... It has to be.”

“No. It doesn't.” Reluctantly accepting that there's probably nothing I'm going to be able to say to Will that will get through the fog of doubt in his head, I decide to just throw caution to the winds and both talk from the heart and simply... go for it. “Jane said something interesting to me on the plane this evening,” I murmur, once again crouching down by Will, “something that I turned a deaf ear to at the time, but... I realise now that she's right. That she could see it even if I either... couldn't, or... wouldn't... acknowledge it myself.”

His attention, just as I'd been counting on, caught by the cryptic nature of my statement, Will looks down at me and waits patiently for the punch line.

“And that's,” I continue softly, placing my hand on his knee and audibly breathing a sigh of relief when he doesn't immediately pull it away, “that there isn't a single thing I wouldn't do for you. So... Come on, Will. Things aren't...”

“Why?” he interrupts in a flat, cold tone of voice that's at distinct odds with the curious, hopeful look in his eyes. “Why would you want to do... anything... for me? It's not as though...”

“Because I'm as stubborn as you are?” I offer with a shrug as I once again cut him off. “Because I've perhaps been hit on the head one too many times? Because...” Trailing off, I squeeze his knee and flash him a tentative smile. “Because you get under my skin and despite beginning to think that I'm fighting a losing battle, I actually care about your pig headed and closed off self even if you don't... and wish that I didn't either.”

Cocking his head to the side, Will doesn't reply and just gazes down at me as he mulls my... no doubt to him completely out of the blue... confession over. He's so silent and so still that I'm beginning to regret ever having – got out of bed – opened my mouth, when a soft sigh slips past his lips and he whispers, “There's nothing you wouldn't do for me...?”

“Nothing,” I confirm, giving his knee another quick squeeze. “Actually, as I'm not going to leave even if you ask me to, make that... almost nothing.”

“I'm not going to ask you to leave,” Will murmurs, looking down at the bed for a second or two before standing up and quietly adding, “Stay?”

Not quite following what Will means here, I stand up and, with a frown, shrug. “As I just said, I'm not going anywhere.”

“I meant...” Falling silent, Will blushes and shakes his head. “Forget it. Just forget it.”

The penny suddenly dropping – the way he looked at the bed, his embarrassment at my denseness – I glance down at the mattress and smile. “You meant here, with you...”

“Doesn't matter,” Will mutters, hugging his arms loosely around his chest and studiously looking away. “It was stupid of me to even think you'd...”

“No. It wasn't.” Walking around the bed, I pull back the bedding and take a seat on the mattress. “If this is honestly what you'd like, Will, of course I'll stay. In fact, I can think of nothing I'd like more.” Quite literally holding my breath in that I haven't misjudged everything here and put Will in a position that he's far from ready for, I nonetheless push ahead with both climbing fully onto the bed and smoothing the quilt over me as, biting down on his bottom lip, Will just gazes at me through wide eyes. 

He then, once his mind is finally made up and I'm starting to feel light headed from not breathing, drops his arms to his sides, shrugs, and, after turning the lamp on the bedside table off and plunging the room into darkness, climbs into bed next to me. Lying as close to the edge of the mattress as he possibly can without actually being in danger of falling off, he lies perfectly still for a few... increasingly awkward... minutes before, his mind once again finally made up, rolling over and settling himself warmly around me.

“One night,” he whispers as, instinct kicking quickly in, I shift into the best position to hug him back. “Just let me have this for one night, then...Then I promise I'll explain... or try to explain, anyway, everything tomorrow...”

~*~

“While I have nothing against you sitting on your backside all day,” I comment, walking into the kitchen and finding Will in the exact same seated position at the kitchen table, his gazed locked on the surely now cold cup of coffee held loosely his hands, that I last saw him in twenty or so minutes ago, “I am, however, going to have to insist that you move said backside into the far warmer living room.” 

I don't want to come down on Will like a dictator, especially not in his own home where I know I'm not wanted anyway, but nor do I want Dr Bruer's dire – and yet only mentioned in passing when I saw him to the front door – prophesy of the pneumonia returning thanks to him being in such a run down state coming true, and really am going to have to insist that he move his ass. A storm front having rolled in over night, it's both pouring with rain and blowing a gale outside, while inside it's dull, gloomy and – no, I'm not even just talking about Will's mood here – surprisingly chilly. Having spotted a fireplace, complete with a neat stack of very dusty logs next to it, in the living room, I've just spent fifteen minutes coaxing a roaring fire into life and now want Will to make the most of the warmth emanating from it. If the expression of – 'Fireplace? What fireplace?” – disinterest on his face when I asked if it was operational, coupled with the amount of cobwebs competing for space amongst all of the dust covering the logs were anything to go by, I suspect this is the first fire to have been lit since he's lived here and, even if he doesn't care, I'm proud of myself for having managed to get it going.

I'm also... reasonably... comfortable with how things have been going between us this morning. Yes, he'd disappeared from the bed before I woke up and, okay, has been pretty much both gazing at me blankly and responding in words of one syllable to everything I've said to him since I got up and found him in the kitchen, but... He's still here, hasn't come out and – even though I'm sure it's what he's thinking – told me to fuck off, and I'm confident that, one way or another and regardless of what it might end up taking out of us both, this really is going to be it. He's going to, reluctantly and after trying every trick he can think of to wriggle out of it, come clean about... what it is that makes him tick and all I have to do is whatever little I can to make it easy for him. I'm being patient, I haven't pushed the point or, for that matter, even raised the issue yet, and I've been giving him both the time and the space to get his head around what surely he knows in himself has to be coming.

Now though, while I'm still not going to demand he starts talking this very instant, I am going to put my foot down about moving into the living room and hope that this, me having to come across all overbearing while he puts up barriers and fights me at every turn, isn't a sign of things to come.

“Come on, Will,” I mutter, trying again and tilting my head in the direction of the living room. “In case it's escaped your attention it's positively Arctic in here and you should be doing what you can to keep warm, not sitting here getting colder and colder.”

Lifting his gaze up from the coffee cup, Will looks over at me as the briefest of faint smiles ghost across his lips. “You got the fire going,” he murmurs. “The fire that, fine, okay, I can't even say I've ever really noticed before.”

“I did,” I confirm, surprised that he seems to be taking my success at getting the fire lit as a given. “How'd you know that I didn't just give up and turn the heating on though?”

“You have a spot of soot on your cheek,” Will replies indifferently, his eyes once again sliding back to his cup. “Not, I suppose, that that automatically represents success.”

“Well, in this case you were right the first time,” I reply, “and I'm happy to say that my pyromaniac tendencies haven't let me down and the fire is now burning nicely.” Rubbing my hands over my cheeks in the hope of cleaning off the soot, I shrug and move closer to the table. “Now. Move. Don't make me pick you up and carry you.”

“You mean... grab... me again?” Will retorts as, his expression as flat and as emotionless as his voice, he nonetheless pushes his chair back and stands up. “Coming back for seconds, huh, Ethan?”

Great. If this is how he's wanting to play it then I might have to rethink my confidence levels in respect to how well this is going to go.

“I did what I felt I had to,” I respond, deliberately keeping my voice as emotionless as Will's. “Just as, I'm sure, you did with your dealings with Perkins. Am I sorry that I did that to you? Of course I am. It wasn't a nice thing to do and you certainly didn't deserve...”

“Whatever,” Will interrupts. “Seeing as I didn't care then and still don't care now, I don't even know why I said it.” Shrugging, he makes a point of staring directly in front of him and, walking past me, makes his way out of the kitchen. “Look. I'm dutifully doing as I'm told and going to the living room. Happy now?”

“Oh, you have no fucking idea,” I mutter through clenched teeth as, rolling my eyes for absolutely no reason other than that's what I feel like doing, I follow Will into the living room. Wanting to keep the warmth in, I shut the door behind me as, contrary to the bitter end, he goes to stand by the cold glass of the window. “By the way, I care even if you don't. While I can't stand here and say that I wouldn't do it again if the situation called for it, it...”

“You see, that's what I just don't get,” Will states, going the whole hog here and folding his arms defensively across his chest as he glowers at me through narrow eyes. “Seriously, Ethan, why... do... you care? I don't, so why should you? It just doesn't make any sense to me. You... don't make any sense to me.”

Giving Will an annoyed – 'if this is how you want to play it, then, fine, let's play' – look of my own, I walk over to the sofa and take a seat. “I don't make any sense to you because... I care about you, is that it?”

“Exactly,” he replies, leaning against the wall by the window and fixing his unblinking gaze on me. “Why care, huh? God knows it's not as though I've given you any reason to care whether I live or die, let alone for you to actually care... for me. I... I'm nothing to you.”

“You're not nothing,” I respond, settling back on the sofa and, more in the hope of unsettling him than indulging my inner masochist, making a determined point to meet his eyes. “You're my team mate, someone I get to spend approximately ninety percent of my time with whether I like it or not, and, as I think I said last night, you fascinate me. Maybe I'm wrong, but I honestly think there's far more to you then you've ever let on and I'm... curious... to get to the bottom of all of your mysteries.”

“Curiosity killed the cat,” Will retorts, defiantly meeting my gaze as half a sneer crosses his pale face.

Shrugging, I stretch my legs out in front of me and no doubt further infuriate him by smiling. “Ah... Yes. But satisfaction brought it back, remember...”

“Be careful what you wish for, Ethan,” he mutters with a scowl as, having had enough of trying to out stare me, he tilts his head back and looks up at the ceiling. “You say that you want to know me, that you... care... about me, but what if I tell you everything you think you want to know and... instead of being simply satisfied you're... appalled... and don't want anything to do with me?”

“I doubt there's anything I could learn about you that would appal me, Will,” I murmur, taken somewhat aback that he could even think such a thing. “Don't forget we've worked together for a year now and, without any actual help from you, I might add, I've already been able to form a pretty firm opinion of what I think you're like as a person.”

“Then you wouldn't be the first one to be proven wrong then,” Will murmurs quietly. “Trust me. I speak from experience here.”

“Okay. Fine.” Whatever doubts Will's got running through his mind in respect to thinking I could somehow hate him have to stop now and I think, no, hope, that I may have a way of moving him on from them. “What you're so desperately not wanting to tell me, does it involve you having murdered someone in cold blood?” I query, leaning forward and resting my hands on my thighs as, immediately caught by the strangeness of my question, Will lowers his head and gazes across at me with a look of open curiosity on his face.

“While I don't know what that's got to do with anything,” he mutters, shaking his head, “no, it doesn't involve murder.”

“Good. So... What about children?”

“What... about... children?”

“If you're about to confess to finding them sexy, I'm telling you now that you're right and my opinion of you really... is... going to take a turn for the worse.”

“Is that your way of asking me if I'm a paedophile?” Will queries, the astonishment he's feeling at my peculiar line of questioning coming through loud and clear in both his voice and stunned expression.

“Well, it's an important question.”

“I'm not a fucking paedophile!”

“Good. I'm pleased to hear it. Now... What about animals?”

“Animals?”

“Do you find...”

“If you're about to ask me whether I find animals sexy and get my rocks off on bestiality then, again, the answer is most definitely no!”

“Excellent.” I beam at Will. “Now, this house... Does it have a basement?”

“It does,” he confirms, giving me a suspicious – 'just what is the crazy bastard going to ask me now?' – look.

“And... This basement, does it contain either a torture chamber or a Nazi shrine?”

“A... What?” Will exclaims, rubbing his temples. “Nazis? Torture chambers? The answer to both, oddly enough, is no. If you must know it contains boxes full of my parents' belongings, but, please, by all means go and have a look for yourself if you think I'm keeping something... hinky... down there.”

“No, no. I'll take your word for it.” I increase the wattage of my smile and mentally congratulate myself for having... startled... Will enough to move him on from convincing himself that, when all of this is over, I'm simply going to have to hate him. “Now, two more questions and we're done.”

“I can hardly wait.”

“Do you own, or have you ever purchased, a Celine Dion CD?”

“Er.. No. I can't say I have. Although, what this has got to do with...”

“I'll get to that,” I interrupt. “So, final question... Have you ever been in a boy band?”

“A boy band?” Will repeats incredulously. “You're sitting there asking me if I've ever... been in a boy band? Just... Dare I even ask... why?”

“Not before you've answered the question, you can't.”

“Fine. If it puts your warped mind to rest somehow, I give you my word that I've never been in, or even... contemplated... being in, a boy band.”

“In that case, seeing as you've just passed my own personal moral litmus test, I think it's fairly safe to say that regardless of just whatever it is that's about to come out of your mouth, Will, that I'm not going to end up hating you,” I reply with a smug, superior smile. “So... Congratulations. You're a good person whether you think you are or not.”

Shaking his head, Will shifts away from the window and goes to stand by the fireplace. “That... That's what that was all about?” he murmurs. “Your own personal... litmus test? Well, as glad as I am to have passed it, I'm here to tell you now, Ethan, that it's probably missing some vital points that... uh... trust me, I can still fail.”

“As this is my test though, I'm the only one who knows what needs to be passed,” I reply, “and I say that you've passed. So, come on, Will. Stop trying to put this off and... just talk to me. I know you don't want to and probably think that I'm just sticking my nose in where it's uninvited, but there are things I need to know on a purely operational level, and for that reason alone I think I have the right to insist you explain a few things to me. Take Perkins for example. We wouldn't have been able to successfully complete the mission without you getting the information from him, but...”

“You're right,” Will interjects with a resigned sounding sigh. “As team leader you have a... right... to know about Perkins. The thing is though, to... explain my history with Perkins I feel as though I have to explain... everything, and... And it's not something I've ever done before. Nor, for that matter, is it something I... want... to do.”

“But... You're going to?” I prompt gently, sensing that we're finally getting somewhere. “I don't want to push you, Will, and I don't want to make you uncomfortable, but... It's not just my curiosity we're talking about here, it's the way we work together too.”

“And that's why, yes, I'm going to force myself to do it,” Will responds as a grim expression of determination settles over his face and he takes a seat in the armchair opposite the sofa. “But... It's got to be on my terms, okay?”

“It depends on the terms,” I reply cautiously, not wanting to lock myself into anything here in case it ends up resulting in big gaps in what he's going to tell me.

“No. It doesn't.”

“Will...”

“My story. My terms,” he retorts stubbornly. “Look, if you're worried that I'm not going to tell you everything, then... you can stop worrying. I am, even though I don't want to, going to tell you everything, but it has to be... my way.”

Accepting that this probably isn't something I'm going to win, I nod my agreement and murmur, “Then I suppose you'd better tell me what these terms are, then.”

“As I think this is going to take long enough as it is, I don't want any interruptions,” Will states, watching me closely for any signs that I might try to argue with him again. “This is... my life, not an interactive experience.”

“No promises, but I'll certainly try my best.”

“Well, that's better than nothing, I suppose,” Will replies with a notable lack of enthusiasm. “The most important thing though is... this... And that's that at no point do I want your... pity or sorrow. You can sneer, look down your nose or pass judgement on me, you can even plan to get away from me as soon as you possibly can, but...”

“I've told you already,” I interrupt, once again wanting to nip this... new... doubt in the bud before it has time to grow any bigger in Will's mind, “that there's nothing you can say to me that will make me hate you or want to... escape. The same can be said for looking down my nose or passing judgement on you. I'm not going anywhere, and I'm not going to hate you.”

Will shrugs and – never let it be said he's one to give up without a fight – gives me a look made up of equal parts frustration and tiredness. “You say that now.”

“And you're putting words into my mouth.”

“No. I'm just talking from experience. Now...”

“And I still say you're doing your best to make my mind up for me.”

“What did I say about interrupting? Will sighs. “Look. It's my way...”

“Or the highway,” I interject, flashing Will an apologetic grin. “And, yes, I know that was another interruption, but... I just couldn't help myself.”

“Apparently not.” Will sighs again and, breathing deeply, rubs his hands over his face. “Now, are we... Actually, no. Am... I... going to do this or not?” he continues, dropping his hands down onto the arms of the chair and rubbing his fingers along the smooth leather. “If I'm going to be able to hopefully cover all the questions I know you're just dying to ask, it's... not going to be a short story and, if I'm going to do it, I want to both start and... finish... it now.”

“Then, please... Start,” I reply with what I truly hope he translates as a reassuring smile. “Just... talk, and I promise to try to keep my interrupting down to a bare minimum.”

Although his expression clearly states that – he'd rather be trekking across the Sahara naked than having to do this – he doesn't believe me, Will looks me in the eye for a brief moment before lowering his gaze to his lap and, at long last, beginning to talk.

“My parents, and I can think of no better way of putting this, were very... asset orientated. They were both accountants, and I suppose you could even call it, the relentless desire for bigger and better, their shared hobby. If they weren't looking for better jobs with better pay, then they were looking for bigger and better houses that they could renovate and sell for a profit. Because of this, we were always moving. Not just suburbs, but cities and states as well, and I think the longest we ever lived in one place was just shy of two years. Now... Don't get me wrong. This isn't a complaint and I didn't have a bad childhood. My parents loved me and, not knowing any better, I was fine with all of the moving. It... was just what I was used to. A different room. A different neighbourhood. A different school. Again, it never bothered me. As I got older though I decided that going to all the effort of making friends just... wasn't always worth it. I made them easily enough, but we moved with such frequency that I was never able to keep them and, by the time I was in high school, I realised that, really, there was next to no point in even making them. I wasn't a geek, or a jock, or one of the... weird kids, I was just... nothing. I was never bullied, teased, or excluded from anything, and I certainly enjoyed school in my own way because I've always loved learning, but, again, I just didn't... count. In fact, having been away the day the class photos were taken, I doubt you'd even be able to find someone from my senior year who remembered me.”

Pausing, Will lifts his head and, finding me staring at him in silent amazement, frowns. “No pity, remember?” he mutters. “My childhood was fine. Given that the odd spot of loneliness was as bad as it ever got, you could almost call it close to idyllic and I'm only mentioning it to you now to explain how I learned at quite a young age to be self-reliant.”

“Fair enough,” I murmur. “If you must know, what I was thinking wasn't... pity... at all.”

“No?” Will snorts as, yet again, he errs on the side of defensiveness. “You either believe me or you don't, but I'm telling you now that I had a good childhood.”

“Not pity,” I repeat with a shrug, “but, hey, you either believe me or you don't.”

“If you're going to be facetious then...”

“Not facetious either,” I state, cutting Will off before he can really arc up and trying to lighten the moment with a smile. “If you must know, I was comparing your childhood to mine, that's all. You moved around all the time and possibly lost count of all of the schools you attended, while I lived my entire childhood on a farm that had been in my family for generations and went through my senior year with a lot of the same kids I'd gone to kindergarten with. That's all. I never went anywhere, while you were always moving, and I suppose I'm just trying to imagine what that would have been like.”

“Oh...” His expression softening, Will shrugs and relaxes back against the armchair. “It was what I was used to, just as the farm and growing up with the same kids was what you were used to,” he replies matter-of-factly. “When it came to going to college though it was like an entirely different world. It's enough of a culture shock for most people being on their own for the first time, but for me it was also knowing that I was going to stay in the same place for four years. Not quite knowing what to expect, while I kept to myself as normal for the first six months or so, I eventually adapted to just going with the flow and my years at Stanford were pretty standard as college goes. I hung out with the same group of people, had a couple of boyfriends who always turned out to be more interesting in the bedroom than they were in real life, and things were just... normal.”

“You were... happier?” I prompt, genuinely curious as to what his answer might be.

“Possibly,” Will responds. “But you've got to remember that I wasn't... unhappy... before, so... Stanford may have been arguably more... normal, with its friendships and staying in one place, but...”

“Really, it was just life?” I finish for him. While I have to say that this, Will deciding to start his story right from the very beginning, isn't what I'd been expecting, he's certainly caught my attention and I'm already definitely wondering where it is he's going with it all.

“Just life... Yes. That's a good way of putting it,” Will replies with a hint of a smile. “After graduation I, with not a great amount of imagination on my part, I must admit, took my freshly printed Political Science degree to Washington and took an internship at the Washington Post. Again, it was... life. I rented a nice apartment, did my job, fell out of touch with just about everyone I'd met at Stanford, and... scored myself my first long term boyfriend. His name was James and he was a photographer for the paper. He also thought of himself as something of an artist and, looking back on it, I think I was more in love with the idea of being in a relationship and playing at being so very grown up and normal than I was with James himself. But, whatever... It was pleasant enough while it lasted and when it ended because he decided that I was too boring for words because I wouldn't quit my job in order to backpack around South America with him so he could take photos simply for the sake of... 'artistic pleasure', I felt more... inconvenienced and annoyed... than I did devastated. I didn't care that he thought I was boring and... I'd have probably continued to bore my way up through the ranks at the Post if not for the fact, barely a month after James had left me for his backpack and camera, my parents were both killed in a horrific car crash...”

Noticing that I'm both staring at him wide-eyed and with my mouth opening in anticipation of offering him my condolences, Will gives me a warning look and shakes his head. “Please... Just don't,” he commands softly. “Yes it was sad, and yes, I was devastated, but I was also twenty-four years old and had been living away from home for the past six years, so it's not as though I was... reliant... on them for anything.”

“They were still your parents though,” I interject, remembering back to the death of my father and how much simply knowing that he wasn't there for me anymore had shocked me. “And, I'm taking it that you were an only child, yeah?”

“I'm an only child,” Will confirms, his expression, as always, giving nothing away as to whether talking about the death of his parents is effecting him in any way. “So, yes, I inherited everything. All the money they'd made during their decades of hard work and effort went to me and, at the age of twenty-four, I had enough cash in my bank account to never have to work again. I could have... done anything. My first thought though, hell, my only thought, was to return to D.C. and my job at the Post and maybe, because I could hear the voice of my father in my ear telling me that renting was only dead money, that I should start looking into buying a house. Then, when I was back there pouring over the real estate listings in the paper, it... hit me.”

“That you were alone?”

“No. That... James was right and that I... was... boring. My job was a means to an end, I felt no particular affection or interest for it, and suddenly the thought of tying myself down to both it and a house made me want to scream and... run for the hills. I thought of my parents, and of all the risks they'd taken in their pursuit of bettering their lives, and, again, I just couldn't shake off the fact that, even compared to them, I was so fucking boring. I went to work, I paid my bills, I was more annoyed than gutted when my boyfriend left me and, just like back in high school, I was... nothing. Just another cog in the wheel.”

“So... That's when you decided to join the FBI?” I prompt, possibly even more curious than ever before in respect to where Will's going with all of this.

“No.” Sighing, Will closes his eyes and tilts his head back until it's resting on the top of the armchair. “That's when I suffered my first monumental brain fade and decided that I wanted to try my luck at investigative journalism. I was already a journalist of sorts and I thought, in all my naivety, that I could blow the journalism world away with my gritty insight into...” Pausing, he opens his eyes and laughs drily. “Wait for it. In all my limited, suburban and boring wisdom, I decided that I was going to be the one to write the definite piece on the inner workings of an underworld gang.”

Okay. That would have to be just about the last thing I was expecting to hear. “An... underworld gang, huh? Dare I ask... how... you were planning on writing such a piece?”

“By ingratiating myself into such a gang, of course,” Will replies, keeping his gaze fixed on the ceiling. “It was a stupid idea, especially seeing as I'd never even smoked weed before, but... I was obsessed. I was obsessed with proving James wrong, with... doing... something with my life, and... that's what I came up with. So... After locking all my money away in term deposits so I couldn't be tempted to access it, I took myself off to LA and...” Pausing again, he abruptly stands up and walks over to the fireplace. “I fell down the rabbit hole, okay... I was out of my depth and... once I started falling I couldn't stop...”

“Will...”

“At first it was like high school all over again,” he continues as though I'd never even spoken as, keeping his back to me, he stares down into the fire. “I didn't exist. Despite my crappy apartment and my decrepit thrift shop clothes and the fact I was always hanging around in the same clubs and bars as they were, no one took any interest in me. Having done my research, I knew that the area I was hanging around in belonged to Steven Masters, one of the most dominate voices in LA's drug scene, but what I didn't know, and couldn't even work out, was how to make myself known to him. Common sense started to whisper in my ear that I wasn't cut out for the task I'd given myself and that I'd be better off just retreating back to the boring world I knew with my tail between my legs, but I... I was determined to see it through. I didn't even care about the mythical Pulitzer I was planning to win for my article anymore and just wanted to prove to myself that I could break through the mundanity and the boredom of my life up until that point and successfully break out of my comfort zone.”

“So... You stuck it out?” I murmur inquiringly as, already, I'm beginning to really hope for a reply in the negative. He said it himself. He was naïve, not too many steps removed from being a poor little rich boy, and there he was tying to ingratiate himself into a world of crime, gangs and drugs? It just has all the hallmarks of not ending well, it really does.

“I stuck it out,” Will responds as, his expression impassive, he slowly turns around to face me. “Look, Ethan, what I'm about to tell you isn't going to be easy. Not for me and, I suspect, not for you having to hear it either. But... It's what it is. You can, and will, form your own opinion, but I just want you to know that while I'm not proud of this time in my life, nor am I ashamed of it. Some parts, yes, but on a whole, regardless of how unpleasant it was and how it might forever colour how you view me, it's... because of it that I'm where I am now. So... Again, I'm not proud of it, but I just want you to be aware that I'm not ashamed of it either. It... was what it was.”

Pausing here, Will, his eyes almost as grey as they were yesterday when we rescued him from Perkins', looks at me as though he's almost challenging me to say something before, with a weary shrug and quick nod to himself, returning to his story.

“Not liking the poverty or being treated like a third class citizen by the same society I used to take for granted, I was close to packing it in probably a month after I'd arrived when... fate intervened... and I managed to come to the attention of Masters himself. I was lurking in a club as normal when I heard raised voices coming from one of the booths and, for some unknown reason, I decided to get off my stool and investigate. One of the men in the booth was Masters, and he was arguing, or... trying to argue as the case may be... with a Hispanic man who had even less knowledge of the English language than Masters had of Spanish. Now, because I was fluent in Spanish I, without even thinking, mind you, stepped in and started to translate for them. Even though they were arguing about a drug debt which, really, should have been private, Masters was so impressed by both my initiative and language skills that, basically, he gave me a job on the spot and, just like that, I was a part of his world.”

“Just like that,” I echo, more convinced than ever before that there's no way I'm going to like where this part of the story goes. “You were... what? His translator?” 

“At first, yes, that was all he wanted me for. He gave me a cell phone and I was pretty much on standby mode just waiting for his call to say that I was needed somewhere to translate for him. I... Hell. I thought I had it made and that I'd finally fallen on my feet big time. There I was, not only part of Masters' world but with a direct line to the man himself. The Pulitzer, as far as I was concerned, was back on the cards...”

“Only...?”

“Only... Wanting to prove just how fucking naïve I really was, I decided that I wanted to experience everything criminal life had to offer and... when, by way of a bonus for a job well done, Masters offered me a hit of cocaine, I... took it.”

“Oh...” As in, oh... fuck.

“Oh... doesn't even begin to come close to covering it,” Will replies with a grimace as he shifts to rest his back against the wall just to the right of the fireplace. “In fact, not wanting to make a long story even longer, let's just be perfectly blunt here and say that not only did I like it but that I also became incredibly quickly addicted to it. Coke. Weed. Acid. Uppers. Downers. Whatever Masters had and was willing to give me, so long as it could be smoked, snorted or swallowed, I was all for it.”

“This Masters, he wasn't into heroin, then?”

“He was. I wasn't. While I'm not afraid of needles, and God knows hygiene and personal safety had stopped being one of my concerns at this point, I'd once seen one of Masters' hired muscle injecting himself between his toes and that, for some reason, had just struck me as the most revolting thing I'd ever encountered and I simply couldn't bring myself to do it. Which...” Trailing off, Will swallows hard and drops his gaze down to his feet. “Which, given the things I... would... do, was pretty ironic, really. I wouldn't inject heroin for the fear of one day being reduced to having to take it through my toes, but I'd... let... myself be fucked by anyone Masters wanted me to... entertain...”

“Will...”

“Don't... Will, me. I was a drug addict who not only worked for Masters but who would, so long as the drugs kept coming, do anything... or anyone... he wanted me to,” Will murmurs, once again closing his eyes. “If you're sitting there thinking he was a pimp though, don't, as prostitution was one thing he wasn't into. Drugs, guns, money laundering, illegal documents, sure, but not prostitution. We, the other... addicted... members of his entourage that he simply kept around for our various uses, were... gifts... to either valued customers or those he thought would one day be able to help him somehow. Where the business world sends gift baskets or wine, Masters sent... sex, and... And I was one of his most... popular, too. While I've always looked younger than my years, back then, with my stupid floppy hair and in the right light, I could get away with looking like jail bait and... there were those that that particular look just... really... worked for.”

“But surely you knew this was wrong and wanted to break free?” Will, I suppose to his credit, is being so thorough with his tale that I can clearly imagine everything he's telling me and... Really, I just wish that I wasn't, that I wasn't sitting here picturing these sorts of things in my mind and that, simply, they'd never even occurred in the first place.

Snorting, Will opens his eyes and gives me an annoyed look. “What part of... drug addict... aren't you getting here, Ethan?” he mutters. “So long as I was high I didn't care what was happening to me. If Masters told me to slap on the eyeliner and let Perkins fuck me over his kitchen table then off I dutifully went. It... was all my life had become. Sex and drugs, and I honestly didn't know any better. Then... after six or so months of this, Masters made the mistake of sending me to... woo... a pair of brothers who had a cache of guns he wanted to get his hands on and who, as it happens, only liked women... They...” 

Closing his eyes again, he hugs his arms loosely around his chest and, after a few, very long seconds have passed, adds in a whisper, “They hurt me. They hurt me... badly, and... that's all I'm ever going to say on the subject, so, please don't ask me to elaborate because I... I won't.”

“I...” Getting up and giving in to my desire to hug him not really being an option because he'd probably only react by dropping me, I use all my willpower to both remain on the sofa and not sigh. “Don't worry, as I'm sure I don't want to know anyway, I'm not going to ask...”

“You're right, you don't want to know,” Will murmurs, opening his eyes and giving me a look that's as grateful as it is relieved. “Now... When I came to I was back at Masters' compound and being tendered to by another one of his... boys, Toby. I'd seen him around before but, because he was a couple of years older than me and his boy-next-door looks were already on the slide courtesy of all of the drugs and the many years in Masters' employment, we'd never actually met as he was no longer... gift material... and was used more just for running errands and the like. What he was though was kind, and you could have been forgiven for thinking, if you'd seen the way he looked after me, that we'd known each other forever and were best friends. Having been... pretty banged up... it took weeks for me to recover and Masters allowed Toby to stay with me the whole time. And... proving that there's always room for another cliché in my good-suburban-boy-turns-into-drug-addled-whore story, we, if you haven't already seen it coming a mile off, fell in love...”

“Colour me surprised,” I murmur, more to acknowledge Will's attempt at momentarily... lightening... the darkness of his tale than because I had actually seen it coming. “He... This Toby, he was good for you though, yeah?” 

“If you're asking did he turn my life around and put me back onto the path of returning to being a decent member of society, then the answer, at first and then not in the way you're probably expecting anyway, is no. He did, however, make me happier than perhaps I'd ever been. Everything else was the same, the drugs and the being... loaned... out, but when we weren't doing whatever Masters told us to do we just... hung out together and behaved, I suppose, as normally as we could given the circumstances. You probably won't believe me, but we had fun together. We really did...” Trailing off, Will flashes me a sadly wistful smile and gives a small shrug. “It was... nice... having sex with someone simply because I wanted to and knew they wouldn't hurt me instead of... having to and just, you know, having to take it...”

“I... can imagine.” And I can too. And, again, I really wish that I couldn't.

“We... Oh God...” A low, almost whimpering sound slipping out of Will's lips, he suddenly blinks back tears and returns to his earlier position by the window. “We had five months together,” he states faintly, keeping his back to me and addressing the dull grey world outside the glass. “Toby, he... Unlike me, his drug of choice was heroin. I used to hate it but, having my own addictions, I just let it be. We were... content in our sick and twisted little world and although we could talk about anything and everything, the one thing we never spoke about was... getting out. Masters looked after us and... we had everything we both wanted and needed. Then... Oh God...”

Whimpering again, Will turns around and, keeping his back against the wall, slides down it until he's sitting, hugging his knees to his chest, on the floor. This time there's no amount of willpower in the world that can stop me from jumping immediately to my feet and going over to him but, knowing both my limitations and Will's need for space, I crouch down a short distance away from him and just... wait. I want to touch him, to, again, be brave enough to take him in my arms and stroke his hair, but I know, as much as I hate it, that now isn't the time. As he said at the very start, this has to be on his terms and, having started it, he has to be able to finish it.

“It... It was meant to be a party,” Will whispers, his breathing ragged as he struggles to get both his memories and his emotions back under control. “A new shipment of heroin had just arrived and Masters had decided to have a little get together to both celebrate it having made it into LA and to show it off to prospective buyers. I... I was sitting on Perkins' lap when, clearly feeling magnanimous, Masters decided to bestow the honour of the first hit on Toby. What he didn't know, what none of us ever would have expected given how many years Masters had been in the business and how... respected and feared... he was, was that the heroin wasn't pure, that it was a bad batch...”

Knowing what's coming, what... has... to be coming, I take a risk and rest my hand lightly on Will's knee. “Toby, he...”

“He overdosed right in front of us,” Will replies hollowly as, still not ready to be comforted, he dislodges my hand by drawing his knees up even closer to his chest. “Overdosed and... died. He died in front of me and there was nothing I could do! Nobody... Oh God... Nobody even tried to help him. They just stood there, swearing and panicking and already making their plans to get their own back on the supplier, and then... Then, when he was finally dead, they started discussing how they were just going to... dispose... of the body! I... I couldn't believe it! I wanted him to have a proper burial, and for his mother, who I'd met and who'd been lovely to me, to both know what had happened to her son and to have a tombstone in his memory where she could visit him, but they... They were talking about... Oh God... They wanted to chop him up and throw him off a boat. I... I lost it. I just completely lost it and started screaming, pleading with them not to do it, until someone, I don't even know who, had had enough and put a choke hold on me until I blacked out...”

“I... I'm sorry.” I don't know what else to say so, if in doubt, go with the obvious. “Will... Shit. I can't even imagine what that must have been like for you.”

Wiping the tears still glistening in his eyes away with the back of his hand, Will sits up a little straighter and rests his head back against the wall. “I woke up in Perkins' bed,” he states both calmly and, yet again, flatly. “I was naked, so who knows what might have happened, but there were clean clothes on the chair by the bed, along with breakfast and one thousand dollars cash on a tray on the bedside table, so... things could have been far worse. I had a headache and couldn't get Toby's death out of my head but, instead of feeling sorry for myself I... I suddenly knew what it was that I had to do and that this time, regardless of what it took, I was going to see my harebrained idea through.”

I'm sure I don't really want to know, but, hey, you know, why not go ahead say it anyway simply for the sake of hearing my own voice? “Do I... even want to ask?”

“It wasn't to put a bullet in Masters forehead, if that's what you're thinking,” Will mutters, shifting into a cross-legged position as I drop from a crouch into a more comfortable kneel. “I showered, got dressed and ate breakfast before leaving Perkins' and, after handing over the cash to the first drug rehabilitation place I found, made my way directly to the LA field office of the FBI. I knew Masters had men inside the LAPD and wanted to share what I knew with the Bureau in the hope that they'd have a better chance of bringing Masters down. It...” Looking at me, he pulls a face and shakes his head. “It didn't go well. Clean clothes or not, I still looked like what I was, a drug fucked whore, and the agent on the counter was more interested in his cup of coffee than he was in what I was trying to tell him. Pissed off, I was just starting to make a scene when a senior agent on his way out to somewhere else came through the reception area and asked me to come with him. Thinking he was going to throw me out without listening to what I had to say, I didn't want to go with him and tried to resist, but he was big, you know, one of those classic, middle aged, overweight and sporting a truly impressive moustache type FBI agents, and wouldn't take no for an answer.”

“He threw you out?”

“No. His name was Harry Longmire and, despite my appearance and the fact I was clearly unravelling at the seams because I was overdue a fix, he took me to a café for coffee and listened carefully to every word I had to say,” Will replies with a fond smile that, while it mightn't come close to reaching his eyes is still a nice thing to see. “He listened to me, didn't judge me, and... most importantly of all... he believed me.”

“So... That was it? You spilt the beans on Masters' operations and... got out?”

“Yeah, right. Because the tales coming out of the mouth of one lone drug addict are always enough to spur the FBI into action,” he mutters. “So... No. I didn't get out. In fact, I went straight back in.”

“Shit!” Now, that, I hadn't seen coming. “But... Why? You just said that Longmire believed you...”

“He did, but he'd tried to get Masters before and needed actual evidence before he could mount another investigation to go after him. So I...”

“You went back in to get it.”

“I did. Longmire officially signed me up as an informant and, feeling that I owed it to Toby, I went back to Masters in order to gather everything I could to stitch the bastard up once and for all. I also, and, actually, hiding this from everyone was even harder than doing it, weaned myself off all the drugs because I wanted to both keep a clear head and not leave anything to chance.”

“Yet...” Why? Why do I feel compelled to ask these questions when, deep down, I already know the answer? “When you went back in, you... were doing the same sorts of things for Masters as you were before?”

“Of course,” Will replies, giving me a wry look. “That's all I was good for. I was too wasted to provide muscle, had never shown any inclination in taking an active part in any of the other aspects of the business and, besides, if I'd drawn a line in the sand and declared that I was no longer taking my clothes off and bending over for all and sundry then... suspicions would have been raised.”

“But... You were no longer high all the time...”

“You're right. I wasn't. Everything I did I... did without the help of drugs.”

I groan. I just can't help it. Sure, I've slept with people I haven't wanted to all in the name of getting something I needed out of them. But... They've been few and far between and I've never had to do it with the... frequency... that Will's been implying in his tale. And the thought of him, without any of the official training he has now and while still mourning the death of his lover at the hands of the same people he was still having to let... have... him, going back into this world and pretending that nothing had changed it... It just blows my mind. The courage and the determination shown by him, seriously, it just astonishes me.

“Remember, Ethan... No pity and no... judgement,” Will murmurs in a slightly pleading tone. “I did what I felt I had to do and while, yeah, it was fairly horrific, it... worked. I got the evidence I needed and, six months after Toby's death, the FBI moved in and took Masters down. Harry hadn't wanted me to stay in for as long as I did but, wanting to make sure I had Masters in a way that he couldn't wriggle out of, I insisted that I had to stay there until we could all be one hundred percent certain that we had him. Again, I... I just did what I felt I had to.”

“Just like you did returning to Perkins in Vegas,” I reply as, my knees having had enough of being knelt on, I shift over next to Will and, just like he's doing, only with my legs stretched out in front of me instead of sitting cross-legged, lean my back up against the wall. “It's not pity or judgement, Will, it's admiration.”

“I just did what I felt I had to,” he repeats, turning his head just far enough to give me a wary look, as though he's afraid I'm suddenly going to drape my arm around his shoulders and he's going to have to scramble to his feet to escape. “But... You're right. I... returned... to being Billy when I saw that Perkins was in town because I knew that there was a good chance he'd know something about the formula, and because I knew he'd accept me. He'd... always liked me for some reason. In fact, he'd once offered Masters a fairly serious amount of money to take me permanently off his hands which, clearly having more uses than I would have thought, Masters knocked back. So... I was confident that he'd both remember me and, as Harry made sure I was arrested along with everyone else when Masters went down before getting me both out and off, I knew that Perkins wouldn't suspect me of anything and would take me back in.”

“It... still must have been hard.”

“We needed the information and, as I was the only one who could have got it, I simply did what I had to. Besides, Perkins had never been as bad as some of them were. Maybe it was because he had a soft spot for me or whatever, but he was always reasonably gentle and made sure to slip me a little extra cash afterwards.”

“And yet, when we came for you yesterday he had you drugged to the eyeballs and locked in a room,” I mutter sourly. “I know people change, but...”

“As I'd never tried to get away from him before, for all I know he hadn't changed at all and was always like that,” Will replies, his expression suddenly clouding over. “Actually... as new and as unwanted as the whole... spanking thing was, I honestly don't think I've ever been as... terrified... as I was when I saw him waving around the syringe. I... Fuck!” Getting to his feet, he shoots a lingering glance at the door before, with a sigh, returning to the fireplace. “I saw the syringe and all I could think of was both Toby's death and the fear that I'd again become addicted to whatever was in it. I... I was so worked up about it that... when it took effect and I just... floated off, it was actually a relief. But... Whatever...” Crouching down, Will grabs the poker and begins to prod the fire with it, solely, I suspect, to give himself something to do. “It's over now and I'd do it again if I had to, so...” 

Standing up, I walk over to Will and place my hand briefly, so briefly in fact that I don't even leave it there long enough for him to jerk away, on his shoulder before taking a seat back on the sofa. “Here's hoping it never comes to that again,” I state, already knowing in myself that despite the effort we put into keeping Will's cover with Perkins intact that I'll do whatever I can to never put him in the same situation again. He'd do it, as it's what we do, but... No. Just, no.

“If it does, it does,” Will mutters, still poking the fire and gazing at the flames as though transfixed. “It's... what we do, after all. What we're trained for. Now... Getting back to my tedious story, the one I swore I was going to finish and... am going to finish, so...” Dropping the poker with a loud clatter on to the antique tiles surrounding the fireplace, Will stands up and looks over at me. “If it helps, there's really not much left.”

“Just the FBI,” I murmur, “and... why your file with them is sealed?”

“Yeah... Pretty much,” Will replies with a nod. “Harry was so impressed with how I'd helped to take Masters down that he suggested I might like to consider joining the FBI and that, if I did, he'd pull some strings to get me in on the next intake at Quantico. Now... While I'd love to say I jumped at the idea because I'd decided law enforcement was my life's calling, I... really only agreed because, well, because I couldn't think of anything better to do. I didn't want to go back to journalism and, even though I had the money, nor did I just want to sit around on my ass, so... in the end I simply thought... why not, and took Harry up on his offer.”

“Well, it's certainly one route into the FBI.” A fairly good one too, if you ask me.

“I suppose that it is,” he agrees indifferently. “From Quantico I pretty quickly made field agent and was assigned to the Boston office where, clearly not yet having learned my lesson, I got into a relationship with a FBI tech officer. His name was Nick and, if anything, he was even more boring than I'd ever been. He was from old money and, to be honest, was a complete snob. But... he saw what he wanted in me and... I let him see it because... being boring... was what I thought I needed after everything that had happened in LA. Did I love him? No, I didn't. Some days I don't think I even liked him very much, but... he was pleasant enough, convenient enough, and we had some... nice enough times together.”

“But...? All wasn't as it seemed?” I query, wondering why, on the strength of Will's hardly detailed description of him alone, I already don't like the sound of this Nick.

“I'd been in Boston for just over two years, most of which had been spent with Nick,” Will continues, completely ignoring, on the face of it anyway, my question, “when a promotion in the office came up that, to the absolute disgust of a fellow agent that had been there for far longer than I had and who thought he had it in the bag, I won. McKay, that was his name, Brian McKay, was so incensed by this, by being overlooked by an upstart newcomer, that he decided to look into my past and... what he found only served to infuriate him even more.”

“He found out about your history with Masters?”

“He did, and I think he would have thought that all of his Christmases had come at once when he discovered that my file not only came with a detailed history, but photos as well. Just... Think about it. There I was, an ex-drug addicted, criminal whore, taking... his... promotion. He... Hell. Despite being nearly forty and well and truly old enough to know better, he systematically went out of his way to both make sure everyone knew how... disgusting... I was and to undermine me at every turn. But...” Sighing, Will looks at me and scowls. “It wasn't McKay I should have been worried about, it was Nick...”

“Nick? Your lover?”

“Nick, my super snob lover, yes. Not only was he so repulsed by my history that he quite literally marched me down to the clinic for an AIDS test, but he also dumped me like the proverbial hot potato and, if that wasn't enough, tried to get the ultimate revenge for the way he was convinced I'd played him, by... doing his best to get me killed.”

“What?” Again, not what I was expecting to hear. “The bastard tried to kill you?”

“Not personally, no,” Will responds, shrugging as he makes his way back over to the armchair and sinks down into it. “He just screwed up an assignment so the gang I was after knew I was coming for them. It... He would have got his wish too, if not for a rookie in the office spotting the leak in an email that shouldn't have been there and raising the alarm. It... was still nearly too late though. The gang had had me for a couple of hours by the time the cavalry got there and, yeah, I'd been beaten pretty much all over and was in a bad way. In fact, I almost died and spent my thirtieth birthday alone in a hospital bed feeling even... emptier.. than I had while I was whoring myself for Masters. My... ex-lover had tried to have me killed all because of my past, because he'd been so disgusted with it. It... It was the final straw. I couldn't take it any more. I couldn't take staying with the FBI, where I knew my past would continue to haunt me, and... I just wanted to close myself off, to both hide and... distance myself from, well, basically everything.”

This Nick rocketing so far up my 'hit list' to be almost jostling Perkins off the current number one spot, I look across at Will and try, although it's to no avail, to get him to look at me. “Because I know you're almost there, almost at the end,” I murmur, “come on, Will, just tell me how you got from your FBI hospital bed to the IMF and... it'll be all over, yeah?”

“The story will be, at any rate,” Will replies, finally lifting his head just high enough to meet my gaze and startling me with the empty, sad look in his eyes. “But... IMF. Right. I was still in rehabilitation when Harry came to Boston to see me. He wasn't alone though and with him he had Brenton Scott who, as I'm sure you know, was IMF's Secretary at the time. Harry knew, don't ask me how, but he did, that I wouldn't want to go back to the FBI and, as he'd been friends with the Secretary since childhood, thought I might like to contemplate a move to IMF.”

Harry, however, I have to say I like, and if he's still alive, which I hope he is, I may well just have to look him up and thank him for everything he's done for Will over the years. “And... You thought, why not?”

“Pretty much. It was still something to do and, not wanting anything like what happened in Boston happening again, the Secretary promised to close both my FBI file and the one detailing my involvement with Masters. He also agreed that, as I clearly needed a change, I could be based in Europe for as long as I wanted.” Sighing, Will shrugs expansively and gazes across at me with his favourite impassive expression firmly back in place. “So there you have it. I stayed, contentedly enough and without getting into any more trouble in Europe until... Croatia came along and caused me to doubt myself to the point of finally returning to the States and taking up a position as an analyst, where... I stayed for a year before the Kremlin blew up and then, well, you know the rest. You also know that I... learned to be self-sufficient in childhood, have a dark chapter in my life that, when it's discovered, can cause people to sneer down their nose and want nothing to do with me, and that... my track record with relationships is so bad that there's a very good reason why I work so hard at keeping myself... closed off...” Pausing, he gives another shrug and tries, unsuccessfully, unfortunately, to smile. “So, again, there you have it. You're now, and I use the word extremely lightly here, privileged enough to know me better than anyone else ever has.”

“You mightn't see it as much of a privilege, but I do,” I reply with complete honesty as I get to my feet and, holding my hand out in the hope that he'll take it voluntarily, walk over to Will. “Come on, Will, stand up for me.”

“Why?” Will, just as I would have felt safe betting my life on, looks up and gives me a suspicious look. “I'm fine where I am.”

“Why?” I repeat, looking pointedly down at my arm as, gesturing with it impatiently, I continue to wait for him to get the hint and take my hand. “Because it's easier for you to stand up of your own volition than it is for me to pick you up, that's why.”

“Of course. Silly me. I don't know why I didn't know that myself,” Will retorts, his gaze dropping to my hand as, frowning, he clearly hesitates over what to do. Not being stupid, he knows that if he continues to ignore me I'll definitely take matters into my own hands and haul him, unwillingly, to his feet. What he also knows, however, is that if he really wants to he possesses the skills to get past me and – probably landing me on my ass in the process – be out the door before I'm even truly aware that's he moved. So... Does he out sit me and risk being manhandled? Or does he... get me to back off by going the physical, push and shove, route?

Or... Does he take the path of least resistance, put his hand in mine and let me get just whatever it is that's currently making me act a little on the peculiar side out of my system?

“Come on, Will,” I murmur with an encouraging smile as I continue to hold my hand out towards him. “I don't bite and I'm not going to hurt you.”

“You say that like you actually believe it,” Will whispers as, finally having made his mind up that I'm not going away any time soon and that he can't be bothered fighting, he sighs and tentatively places his hand in mine. “Ethan... Please... You don't want to be... putting yourself out for me or... or even bothering with me. You don't... you can't...”

Not wanting to hear any more doubt or self-loathing pouring from his lips, I close my hand around Will's and silence him by pulling him gently to his feet. “Shhh... There you go again, trying to put words, incorrect words at that, into my mouth,” I state in a softly adamant tone as, very deliberately ignoring how his entire body goes rigid at the thought of what he now has to know is coming, I wrap my arms him and draw him into a tight embrace. “Just... Shhh... I'm not asking anything of you or expecting anything in return. I'm just hugging you because I want to, and because... I think you need it...”

“I...” Releasing a deep, shaky breath, Will slumps against me and, clenching his fingers around my shirt front, rests his forehead on my shoulder. “Don't you get it?” he murmurs in such a quiet, pained voice that I have to lower my head in order to be able to hear him. “Maybe I wasn't clear, but... It's not the Perkins of the world I'm afraid of and want to hide from. Them I can handle. I... I know what they want and I know I can give it to them. You... Oh God, Ethan... Don't you get it? It's you... I'm afraid of you, of... of this, and of... falling. I'm afraid of giving in and falling...”

~*~

William Brandt.

I wanted to know him better. Wanted to know all his secrets and to have him laid bare before me. I wanted, no, had... to know his innermost workings and what made him tick.

And now I know.

I know, and I have no reason to think he held anything back, everything. 

His history. His demons. His fears, determination and unquestionable courage. His reasons, his perfectly acceptable and logical reasons for being the way he is.

Perhaps even more importantly, I now understand him. Everything he's ever done he's done for a very good reason. He's also one of the most astonishing men I've ever been fortunate enough to meet. While most agents, with years of field work under their belt and extensive training, could have done what he did when he went back to Masters in order to collect the evidence needed by the FBI, he did it as a mere civilian. A still quite young, naïve and, by this stage, rather damaged civilian. No training, no backup, and no real knowledge of what he was doing. All he had to guide him was the belief that, regardless of both what it might have taken out of him and the constant threat of what might have befallen him if it had all gone wrong, it was something he simply had to do. He had to do whatever he could to avenge the death of his friend and... not knowing what he was doing simply didn't come into it. 

I can't, I really just can't imagine what it would have been like for him. To have gone back in without the... protection... offered by the drugs and to have blithely carried on as though everything was still the same, that he was still as high as a kite and oblivious to what was being done to him, it just... blows me away. The bravery and sheer control he showed by doing this, by sucking everything else up and remaining focussed solely on his goal, again, it just blows me away. In fact, even if I thought he wanted to hear it – which I'm confident he doesn't – I doubt I could put the admiration I now feel for him into words. I always held him in high esteem, just as I always thought him to be an excellent agent, but now I know he's truly in a league of his own.

What I also know is that while the curiosity I felt in respect to Will might have been well and truly put to bed, the other feelings I've been experiencing for him, the ones I haven't really been able to get my head around, let alone fully own up to, have only intensified. I might know the cold, hard facts now, but I still want to... really... know him. Or, to put it another way, what I want from Will, now that he's cracked the door open, is for him to... continue... to both let me know him and... let me further in. 

The only thing is, I'm not entirely sure how to go about it. Will... Just because I know him better now doesn't mean I... know what to do with him. 

I know that... I want to continue working with him and that, just as I was trying to get through to him last night, there really isn't a thing I wouldn't do for him if he'd let me. He's, not that it's the right word to use, and I know he'd refuse to believe it, special. He's as incredibly special as he is, in his own way, fragile. The fragility, which I'm fairly certain is as foreign to him as it is scary and unknown, has shown itself not only in the last words he said to me the other day in the Bellagio's bathroom, but also in the way he behaved last night on both the plane and here, in his house. He's tired, I think, of putting so much effort into always being on his own and would like things to change somehow, only... He doesn't know how exactly he'd like them to change, or even how to go about it. Eight years have passed since Boston, six of which were spent liaising with passing teams and bouncing from location to location in Europe without ever really settling down anywhere, and... that's a long time to spend fortifying barriers and convincing yourself that, yes, you were simply safer being closed off and always on your own.

In a peculiar, round about and somewhat warped, if not entirely wrong way, I'm almost grateful for Perkins having raised his ugly head in Vegas because he's proved to be the catalyst Will needed to take his first, both hesitant and reluctant, steps outside of his carefully constructed and maintained protective circle. By bringing up memories that he'd probably hoped never to be reminded of again and forcing him – albeit by his choice and his alone – to return to the world and the life he'd left behind, Perkins has done, I like to think, both of us a favour. I'm not delusional enough to think that, having opened himself up to me like did, he's anywhere near cured. Nor am I deluded enough to think that I'm going to prove to be of any great help to him. I can always be there for him, and I can mentally cross my fingers that one day he might see me as someone he can actually trust and rely on, but what I can't do is wave a magic wand and undo all the years, if not decades, of hard work he's put into building up his defences and making himself into the man he is today.

Ultimately though, and it doesn't really matter what I think about any of it because – it's not my life being dissected and threatening to come down around my ears – I'm only a concerned observer and, regardless of whether he'd actually planned or even wanted to, Will's made a start. A good start, at that. He's come clean about his past, explained why he keeps those around him at arm's length and, with the exception of bolting from the room once he'd confessed to being afraid of me and of what I represent, I think he's done a damn good job of keeping it together. If you think about what he's been through this week, both in terms of memories and what he allowed to be done to him, the fact that he's even talking at all instead of just reinforcing his barricades and retreating even further into himself is nothing short of a miracle. 

Again, I just admire him more than he'll ever want me to let on.

And, without looking as though I'm either crowding him or expecting him to simply change overnight, I want him to know that I'm here for him, that... I'll do everything I can to always be there for him and that, whatever he wants from me, I'd give it to him willingly. On one level, thanks to having both been in this job for as long as I have and seen the things I have, I'm no more of a... people person... than Will is. I don't give my trust easily, would far prefer to have an incredibly small, core group of friends that I could rely on being there for me should I ever need them than a horde of acquaintances, and my track record with relationships – and the less said about my marriage and the my fucked-in-the-head notion of being able to successfully play 'happy, suburban families' the better – is hardly any better than his. What I am, however, which is more than can be said for Will, is open to change. Just because I've failed at love before doesn't mean that I've permanently turned my back on it. Nor have I ever told myself that, having been burnt so many times before, that I'll never ever trust a person again. Sure, I'll be more cautious, and it might take me a long time, but I'll nonetheless give my trust if I'm satisfied it's been earned.

I want him. Maybe it's stupid of me, and maybe I am truly more delusional than I like to think I am, but I can't deny it. I want the whole damaged packaged that is William Brandt and, at the risk of sounding like I'm looking for a new career in writing romance novels, I want to be the one who can convince him that it's okay to... live a little, and that, if he'd only let it, life can actually be quite fun every now and again. 

In my favour I have the fact that I'm as stubborn and as determined as Will is. I also know that I have to be patient, that if it's going to stand any chance of happening at all that it's not going to happen over night and will probably take months.

What Will has on his side though is all those years of practice of keeping to himself, a dominate fear of failing and being so badly hurt again that things would only end up being worse, and, well, a determined streak that could probably put mine to shame. He wants, unless I'm misreading all the signs and am only seeing what I want to see in them, to try however and, while I still wouldn't want to bet money on who'll come out the victor here, I think that at least has to count for something.

Well, hopefully it does, anyway.

Hearing the sound of the living room door opening behind me, I glance down at my watch and note with some surprise that over three-quarters of an hour have passed since Will took himself off to – hide – pull himself together. Dividing my time between stoking the fire and staring aimlessly out the window at the random flashes of lightning briefly illuminating the growing ever greyer day, I've been so lost in my thoughts that I hadn't even taken any notice of how long he'd been gone and, now that he's returned, have no more of an idea of what to say to him than I did when he left.

“Coming in here makes you realise just how cold the rest of the house is,” Will comments, pulling the door shut as I slowly turn around and watch him walk over to stand in front of the fire. He looks as unreadable and impassive as he usually does and I don't know if I should take this as a good sign or not as it could just as easily mean he's... okay... with things as it could he's eaten up with regrets for ever having opened his mouth and just wants to pretend it never happened.

“In that case in here is where you need to be,” I reply, instantly annoyed at myself for having stayed here in the warmth when I'm not the one still needing to watch his health. In fact, maybe I just shouldn't be still here, period. Will's so private and so used to being on his own that he'd probably like nothing more than to get his house back to himself and to simply be left in peace. “Actually, Will,” I quickly add, deciding to put my thoughts immediately into words instead of dwelling on, and trying to talk myself out of them, “would you like me to leave?”

“Leave where? The living room?” Will responds, looking over at me and frowning as though he really doesn't understand just what it is I'm asking.

“The living room. The house.” I shrug. “You in peace. I... I just don't want you to think I'm trying to take you over or anything like that.”

“Oh.” Will mirrors my shrug and turns to face the fire. “I don't care what...” Stopping himself from finishing, he sighs and holds his hands out to warm them on the heat coming from the flames. “Actually, no... If you've honestly got nothing else to do then... uh... I'm... okay... if you want to stay. I... I really don't mind at all and... uh... would like you to stay.”

“Seeing as I didn't really want to have to go out in that weather anyway, that's good as I'm more than happy to stay inside in the warmth,” I smile, hiding my pleasure at Will's hesitant wish for me to stay behind an easy, light hearted response. “Tell you what. I promise to keep the fire going for as long as I'm here, you know, so I can at least pretend to be lurking with purpose.”

“Sounds like a fair deal to me,” Will responds, giving me a brief half-smile as he begins to walk back towards the door. “Now, I'm just in the process of making myself a coffee. Would you like one?”

“That'd be great, actually,” I reply, even more pleased than I was a second ago at how Will seems to be giving every impression of wanting to push ahead with this new, strangely open position he's found himself in. “Would you like a hand?”

“Thanks, but even though this is the first time I've ever had a guest to make a coffee for, I'm confident that I've got it,” Will states, pausing by the door and giving me an unbothered look that tells me he's perfectly aware of how strange he knows this probably makes him and that I'm free to make an issue out of it if I want to. “Keeping it to yourself. Wise move,” he adds with an actual, honest-to-goodness grin when, meeting his eyes, I make a point of pretending to bite my lip. “Just... Stay there and I'll be back with coffees in a minute.”

“As you've already made it clear that it's warmer in here, I'm not going anywhere,” I retort, gesturing at the door. “Go on. And make sure you shut the door after you.”

“Boss, boss, boss,” Will mutters, feigning a bow as he opens the door and walks out of the room. “I can see now why I've never bothered with having a guest before.”

“Less talk, more coffee,” I yell out after him as, laughing, I move away from the window and take a seat back on the sofa. Never having had a guest in his home before is, of course, not really something you'd normally laugh about. If he's lived here for two years and I'm the first person to ever join him inside then, really, it's more... sad... than cause for merriment, but, seriously, if this, trying to keep things light, is how he wants to play it at the moment, then that's how we'll play it. My internal crystal ball tells me that it won't last, that he's actually no more confident of where we're going with any of this than I am, but the fact that he's so obviously trying just has to be taken as a positive all in itself.

Making myself comfortable on the sofa as the wind continues to howl outside, I decide that there's nothing to be achieved by over thinking things, that what will be will simply be, and just wait for Will to return. Whatever it is that's happening here is new to both of us and, having no manual or even previous experience to guide us, we just have to be prepared to go with the flow. It won't be easy, but hardly anything worthwhile ever is.

Having clearly turned the coffee machine on before passing through the living room, it takes less than five minutes for Will to slip back through the door and hand me my coffee, and I take it from him with a smile as, ferreting a couple of small white pills out of his pocket, he walks over to the armchair and sinks down in to it. “You okay?” I query, watching as he quickly swallows the pills with a mouthful of coffee.

“Headache,” Will replies. “Don't worry. They were just paracetamol. I'm not... off the wagon or anything like that. Been there, don't that, and, trust me, don't ever want to go there again.”

“I'm not surprised you've got a headache,” I respond, glossing over his snide reference to his past drug addiction because I hadn't been implying anything along those lines at all and had just wanted to know, exactly as I'd asked, if he was okay. “What you've put yourself through recently, Will, both Perkins and telling your story this morning, I can only imagine what it's taken out of you.”

“I've felt better, for sure, but I've also felt worse,” he murmurs with a shrug as he takes another sip of coffee. “Look, don't worry about me, Ethan. I'm fine.”

“Mmm...” And in my spare time I'm actually Spiderman. But he probably doesn't need to hear that. “Maybe you'd feel better if you came over here and lay down on the sofa.”

“Probably not,” Will mutters, “but... Just let me finish my coffee first and I might think about it.”

I raise an eyebrow at what almost sounds like an out of character capitulation. “Really?”

“I might be stubborn, but my head really does hurt and, while I know you might find this hard to believe, I'm not a complete martyr and don't actually enjoy being in pain,” Will retorts with yet another shrug. “So... Maybe. Okay? Let's just leave it at... maybe... for the moment and move on.”

“I'll move if you want me to. Just say the word.”

“And... Again, what part of 'just leave it' are you having difficulties getting your heard around? I know my people skills are somewhat on the lacking side, but I'm sure I was speaking English just then...”

“Yeah, yeah.” Laughing, I toast Will with my cup before taking a sip of coffee. “Fine. You win. Sit there with your headache and enjoy your coffee. See if I care.”

“I'll do that,” Will replies as he lifts his cup and returns my toast. “Actually, Ethan... All sarcasm and merriment or whatever that was aside, as I can't say I'm really in any great rush to ever go through any of this again, if there's anything you want to know, any questions you feel as though you've just got to ask me, now is probably the time...” Pausing, he stares down at his coffee. “I'm not saying I'm going to... clam up... and never speak about any of it again as, whether it's coming through or not I really am trying to turn over a new leaf, so to speak, but...”

“You'd like to be able to get as much of it over with today as you possibly can,” I finish, nodding my understanding of what he's trying to get at. “You did such a good job of covering most things earlier though that I won't mind if you just want to drop it all for now. Again, I know this hasn't been easy.”

“Hasn't. Isn't. Won't ever be.” Lifting his head, Will looks over at me and, his expression solemn, catches my eye. “This is it. If you've got anything to ask then... please, just ask.”

“You're... sure?” I don't really want to, as I think he's been through enough already for one day, but as there a few things I wouldn't mind knowing the answers to I will go ahead and ask them if it's what he truly wants.

“As sure as I'll ever be,” Will responds as he gestures with his free hand for me to get on with it.

“Okay. I have to confess to being slightly curious as to what happened to a few of the people you mentioned.”

“Like who?”

“Masters...”

“Is rotting in Los Angeles County prison where it is highly likely he will remain until he's carted out in a wooden box.”

“Perkins, I already know...”

“Is still slithering around,” Will interrupts, a scowl marring his features for all of second. “He was a small fish back then, hanging off Masters' coattails more than anything else, and, having learned that not even big powerful gang lords can remain under the radar for ever he's very carefully taught himself to go about his business undetected.”

“Well, he's on our radar now,” I murmur, hoping that when his time comes I'm the one who gets to close him down. “So it remains to be seen how much longer he gets to go about that business of his.”

“Yeah, well... We'll see,” Will mutters unenthusiastically “Now, is there anyone else you want to ask about?”

“Your... friend, Toby.” I probably shouldn't ask this, but as it is something I'd like to know the answer to and... he is still offering to talk... “Has his body ever been recovered?”

Shaking his head, Will folds both his hands around his cup and stares down in the general vicinity of his knees. “No,” he whispers. “His body is still out there somewhere. I tried to discover what they'd done with it but... Nothing. I came up with nothing and, as much as I hate the thought of it, I honestly believe that they did dump him somewhere in the ocean. Bastards! He... He deserved better than that. Much better.”

“Sorry. I shouldn't have...”

“His mother died while I was still in Boston,” Will states, talking over the top of me as he continues to gaze down at his knees. “Cancer. She died alone in a hospice never having known what happened to her son and that pisses me off as much as anything. Although I was in the middle of a case and couldn't go, I paid for both her funeral and for a tombstone to be erected over the burial plot. I... I had the stonemason carve Toby's details into the stone too, so at least he's remembered somewhere and not totally forgotten, but... It's still not right though. Nowhere... near right.”

“He'll never be forgotten so long as you're around,” I offer softly as, wishing now that I'd listened to myself and never raised this particular issue, I decide the time has come for an abrupt change of topic. “What about that douche bag, Nick, though? Surely the FBI must have booted his ass to the kerb over what he did to you.”

“Oh yeah, they definitely booted his ass to the kerb,” Will confirms, giving me an almost grateful look as, taking another sip of coffee, he leans back in the armchair and stretches his legs out in front of him. “They also cancelled his pension and made sure he was never able to get a job in law enforcement again.”

“Good. Serves him right.” And it does, too. Ignoring my own feelings for the man he almost got killed, sabotaging an assignment or mission for purely selfish reasons is a big pet hate of mine and I'm glad the bastard got what he deserved.

“But wait, there's more,” Will states with a grim smile. “While I probably shouldn't take... a degree of satisfaction from this, I have to say that I'm not ashamed of the fact that I do. That, having nearly died as a result of his... irrational behaviour, it's just about what he deserves.”

“And...? Are you going to tell me, or just leave me hanging?”

“Dumped by both the FBI and his family, who, and you'll love this, you really will, were far more disgusted by their son turning traitor on the FBI than the fact he'd been lowering the family name by fucking an ex-drug addict and whore,” Will replies in a dry, slightly amused tone of voice, “he turned to the bottle and ended up living on the streets. Last I heard, and keeping in mind this was a few years ago now, he'd been... saved... by some whack job religion that makes Scientology look positively sane and rational, and was living in some commune in the middle of Arizona.”

“While I'm not too sure about there being a religion that makes Scientology seem rational and sane,” I mutter with a smile, “I like it. His reaction to your past, Will, was both illogical and extreme, and he never should have... flipped out... like he did. Hell, falling for the demon drink and a nut job religion was probably on his cards long before he ever met you anyway.”

“Yeah, well... And maybe if I'd been open about my past at the very beginning I could have saved the entire mess from ever happening.”

“Maybe you're right, and maybe Nick was always going to be a time bomb waiting for the slightest thing to set him off. You can't blame yourself for...”

“I can, actually. While maybe not... blame... per se, I've always been responsible for my actions,” Will interrupts. “No one ever held a gun to my head and made me do anything I hadn't already chosen to do. Masters didn't force me to take the coke. Nor did he threaten to cut off a limb if I didn't... entertain... his business associates. The same goes for returning to the fold after Toby's death and putting myself through it all over again, only this time without the numbing qualities of the drugs to fall back on. Ditto for keeping my past from Nick. And... And from you. Don't you see, Ethan? Every decision I've ever made I've been responsible for. I... made this bed I'm lying in, no one else made it for me.”

“Just as you're the one whose decided the time may have come to climb out of it,” I reply, seeing, as always, what Will's getting at and just wanting to both accept, and move on from it as quickly as possible. If he thinks knowing that he's the one solely responsible for all the wrong turns in his life is going to ever change my opinion of him then he's sadly mistaken. To me it shows far more strength of character, not to mention an admirable willingness to own up to mistakes instead of trying to lay the blame at someone else's feet, than it does some sort of failing or heinous character flaw. “Look, Will, I'm not Nick,” I continue matter-of-factly, “and nothing you've told me this morning has changed my opinion of you. You're still my team mate and friend, and I still very much want you in my life. Now... Can I finish pumping you for the last bits of information I want to know, or would you rather just sit there and continue to self-flagellate for a little longer?”

Looking surprised at how I chose to respond, Will studies me for a moment or two from beneath a frown before shrugging his acceptance and murmuring, “Ask away, then.”

Only just resisting the urge to praise him with a 'good boy' response, I take a mouthful of coffee and, after I've swallowed it, flash him a relieved smile instead. “Harry Longmire,” I state. “Seeing as I got the impression that he was something of a... guiding light... in your life, I was wondering if you still kept in touch?”

“We did for a while,” Will replies, a brief smile crossing his face at the memory of the man who I honestly hold responsible for having done so much for him over the years. “It was easy in Boston because we both worked for the Bureau. After I joined IMF and went to Europe though, we... lost touch. He used to send Christmas cards, and I'd try to find the time to send him an email every now and again, but I was always moving around and after a few years it all just came to a stop, the cards, the emails, everything.”

“What about when you returned to the States to take up the position of analyst?” I prompt. “You could have looked him up again then.”

“I could have, but... I didn't,” Will murmurs as, having finished his drink, he leans forward and places the empty cup on the coffee-table. “You... You'll probably think this is pathetic because... uh... even I do myself, but... I've never looked Harry up since returning to the States because... I'm afraid of what I might find. Again, it's pathetic, I know that, but if he's dead, and his doctor was always threatening him that he was perfect heart attack material, I... I just don't want to know it. I prefer to think of him having retired and living out the rest of his life surrounded by grandchildren than I do of him... uh... you know, possibly being in the ground.”

“And here I was thinking you were the most logical person I've ever met,” I murmur light-heartedly as I try to brush over Will's obvious embarrassment at having confessed to his peculiar little foible by rolling my eyes and, because it seemed to work last night, simply pushing straight on. “Actually, on the subject of things you... do and don't... want. What... do... you want, Will? Call it wishful thinking if it's what works for you, but... Thinking ahead, what is it you'd now like from life?”

“What I'd like...” Trailing off, Will gives me an unimpressed look that tells me better than a thousand word essay ever could that he doesn't think much of my question and, just in case I'm not getting it, clamps his lips together in silent protest.

“Come on, there's got to be something you'd like?” I query in a wheedling tone of voice because, at the end of the day, I think this may way be the most important question of all. Will hasn't just put himself through the sharing of his story because I've pushed him on it and he wants to get me off his back. There's more to it than that, I'm sure of it. Whether he'll admit it to himself or not, he wants something. Be it catharsis, or a fresh start, or something else entirely, there has to be something he's wanting to get out of this.

Experience telling him that I'm not going to give up here, Will sighs and holds his hands up so that I can see his still black finger nails. “Actually, if you must know, what I'd quite like at the moment is some nail polish remover,” he declares with no hint of humour whatsoever. “It was bad enough when they weren't chipped, but now that it's starting to come off I can't stand it.”

“Nail polish remover, huh?” I mutter, almost wanting to congratulate him on his inner smart ass coming to the fore and so thoroughly playing me.. “Seriously? If you could have anything in the world at the moment it would be... nail polish remover?”

“You try living with chipped polish,” he retorts, sniffing dejectedly as he glances down at his nails. “Now... Do you think Jane would be able to lend me some, or will I have to actually buy some for myself?”

“Oh, I'm sure Jane would be only too happy to lend you some.” Fine. Smart ass. If that's how he wants to play it then I'm only too happy to jump on board as well. “In fact, if you'd like I can give her a call now and I'm sure it would take more than the God awful weather to stop her from popping straight around with it.”

“Straight around, huh?”

“If it meant getting to corner the rare and elusive Williamus Brandtatus on his home turf, then, yes, straight around. She'd probably be out of the door so quickly that she'd even forget the nail polish remover.”

“You see, I disagree,” Will replies, struggling – no doubt thanks to my appalling attempt at... Latinising... his name – to keep a straight face as he gazes over at me through bright, possibly even... twinkling... blue eyes. 

“You... do?” Cocking my head to the side, I affect a studious expression. “Pray, enlighten me.”

“I do. While I agree that she'd certainly be willing to come around, I think, as she wouldn't want him to miss out on such a... rare and elusive... experience, that she'd take a detour and pick up Benji first.”

“You know what, you're probably right!” I laugh, delighted both at Will's humorous slant on our team mates and how easily he seems to be... playing... along with me. “But, hey... My phone's in my pocket, so if you want me to make the call that will see them both arriving on your doorstep within the hour, just say the word...”

“Mmm... Maybe later,” Will responds as, smiling, he stands up and stretches.

“Really?” And... Look. There it is again, a response that I never would have expected.

“Mmm... I've survived the shock of having you in my house, so, really, what's another two?”

“You do of course realise that, all jokes aside, they'd both love to see you, that... they've been as worried about you as I have?”

“I... I am starting to realise that, actually,” Will murmurs, walking over to the sofa and, with no hint of hesitation, taking a seat next to me. “You asked me what I wanted, Ethan,” he continues, folding his hands in his lap and gazing down at them, “and... while I still hardly think I've got the right... what I want is... to stay. I want, if you'll have me, to stay with you, and Jane, and Benji. Despite all my attempts to block you out, you've all welcomed me and made me feel a part of the team, which... isn't something I've ever felt before. I... I'll understand, however, if...”

“The only thing you ever need to understand, Will,” I interject as, after balancing my cup carefully on the arm of the sofa, I reach out my hand and place it over his, “is that you're as much of this team as I am. That, and your history is just that... It's yours, it can't be changed, and it doesn't change anything. You're an IMF agent now, a damn good one at that, and I'm proud to have you on my team. So... Yes. If you want to stay, then of course the answer is yes. In fact, I might even have to insist on it.”

Turning his hand over, Will entwines his fingers with mine and, with a soft sigh, slowly turns his head to look at me. “The things I've done, they don't dis...”

“Nothing about you could ever disgust me,” I declare, squeezing his fingers back as I shift closer and rest my shoulder against his. “You did what you had to do and... as I'm not mentally deranged like that Nick clearly was, I honestly think the things you've done in your past are more cause for admiration than derision. You're amazing, and I want you in my life anyway that I can have you.”

“Now, on that...” Trailing off, Will leans against me and once again drops his gaze. 

Not liking how troubled he suddenly looks, I pull my hand free of his and drape my arm around his slumped shoulders so, just on the off chance he decided to bolt again, I can keep him firmly in place. “Mmm...?”

Sighing, Will curls his legs up onto the sofa and, closing his eyes, settles himself more comfortably against me. “What I also want, what I'd... possibly like more than anything,” he whispers, “is to... try... to be your friend. I... I know you'll say that we are friends, but... we're not. Not really. I accept, even though it's hard for me, that you're my friend and that you really do mean everything you've said to me, but... I'm not your friend, not in the way I should be or... the way I'd like to be. I...” Opening his eyes, Will glances up at me and tries his best to smile both cautiously and hopefully. “I'd like to be though... If you think you can be patient with me for just a little longer, I'd really like to be the friend I should be, the friend I... want... to be to you and... maybe... one day, if I try hard enough and haven't managed to scare you off already, I... I could even possibly be more...”

“While I'm going to let the fact you still haven't accepted there's not a damn thing you can do to scare me off slide for the moment,” I murmur as, reading hope in Will's softly worded statement even if he himself is still full of doubt, I tighten my arm around his shoulders and plant a quick kiss on the top of his head, “when it comes to you, Will, and what you're offering, I can be as patient as you need me to be...”

~*~

“I thought you said you wanted to get a coffee,” Will announces with just the slightest hint of annoyance as, obviously wanting me to really know how he feels about this hurried walk I'm taking him on through the crowded D.C. streets, he sighs with exasperation and comes to an abrupt stop.

“I did,” I reply as, slowing my pace, I glance over my shoulder and gesture at him to keep following me. “That is, I do... Uh... I do want a coffee.”

“Then why have we passed fifteen places that sell coffee since we left HQ?” Will retorts, standing his ground and causing me to come to reluctant stop myself. “Oh, and that, by the way, isn't actually counting the cafeteria in the basement.”

“Well, seeing as the luke warm brown liquid they attempt to pass off as coffee tastes like something you wouldn't give a dog, you wouldn't really count it now, would you...” Really needing him to keep moving, I turn back around and – all the time hoping like hell he follow me – start to walk off. “Besides, I want a... real... coffee.”

“Since when did you become such a coffee connoisseur?” Will mutters as he catches up to me and, you know, just in case I'm really experiencing a dense moment and haven't got it yet, shoots me an annoyed look.

“Since Benji gave me a cup of that brown sludge from the cafeteria this morning.”

“And... the fifteen coffee shops and carts we've passed haven't been good enough for you?”

“Fifteen, huh? That's a very... definite... sounding number. Please don't tell me you've been keeping count.”

“I have, actually, and we've passed fifteen... No. Seeing as you just turned a blind eye to that cart over there, make that sixteen... We've passed sixteen Goddamn coffee sellers since leaving HQ and, I don't know, forgive me for feeling a little confused as to just what exactly it is you're looking for.”

“I want an espresso.”

“Made with what, gold dust? Hate to break this to you, Ethan, but I'm fairly certain each and every one of those sixteen... and, look, as there's another one, make that seventeen... shops would have been only too happy to sell you an espresso.”

“I want... a proper Italian espresso.”

“You want a... proper Italian espresso,” Will repeats as, once again coming to a stop, he grabs my arm and, knowing that I won't want to make a scene, causes me to come to a halt as well. “Okay. Fine. I'll bite. Where on earth are you planning to obtain this... proper Italian espresso?”

“Cucinetta's,” I reply, closing my hand around his and trying unsuccessfully to tug him along behind me. “Come on. It's only a little further.”

“Cucinetta's is over a block away,” Will mutters, shaking off my hand and yet again standing his ground. “I'm sorry, Ethan. While I like a good coffee as much as the next person, I'm over this mid-morning jaunt through the streets and just want to get back to HQ. You know that if we're late for that group of rookies the Secretary will only retaliate by making us take twice the number of classes and I for one just really don't want to have to do that.”

“But...” Accepting that I've fucked this up well and truly and am now risking having my carefully laid plans blow up in my face once and for all, I shrug and choke back a sigh. “Okay. You win. The whole coffee saga is just a ruse to get you to Cucinetta's, where... I've got a surprise waiting for you.”

“A surprise?” Narrowing his eyes, Will shakes his head and takes a step back from me. “What are you talking about? I don't like surprises and...”

“It's okay, you'll like this one,” I interrupt, flashing him a reassuring smile. “Just... Do you trust me?”

“I thought I did,” Will counters, still staring at me suspiciously as we're both jostled by harried looking people as they rush past en route to God alone knows where. “Ethan, I... I know you mean well, but...”

“Do you trust me, yes or no?”

“Yes, but...”

“Would I do anything to hurt you or make you feel uncomfortable?”

“No, but...”

“Then, please... Just trust me and keep walking. You have my word that you'll like my surprise and that it's not one that's going to put you on the spot or anything like that.” Pausing, I grab his hand again and give it a squeeze. “Come on, Will. If you don't come I won't even know who I'm supposed to give your apologies to...”

“My apologies? What? I don't...” Stopping himself from continuing, Will nods and, with a sigh, slowly squeezes my hand back. “Okay. Fine. I'm still not happy about any of this, but... because it's you and I... do... trust you, I'll come with you to Cucinetta's.”

Beaming, I keep my hand closed around Will's and, mentally breathing a sigh of relief that I've got him at least a little way on side, start to walk along the street. “You'll see,” I murmur as, not appearing at all bothered by the fact we're now walking around in public holding hands, Will trails along next to me. “It'll be more than okay and in a couple of minutes you'll be wondering why you ever hesitated in the first place.”

“If I knew what was coming or had your confidence, maybe,” Will replies glumly, speeding up to keep pace with me. “What about the rookies though? I can't imagine Benji and Jane being all that impressed if they're left to take them on the tour on their own.”

“As my job is only to get you to Cucinetta's, I'll be back at HQ before they've even realised I'm missing,” I respond, giving him a gentle bump with my hip in an attempt to cheer him up. “Oh, and I'm sure three of us is more than enough to take the stupid tour, so don't worry. I'll make your excuses for you.”

“But...”

“No buts. Just... stop doubting me, shut up, and walk. We're already a little late as it is thanks to your dawdling.” 

“Dawdling! If you'd been more honest with me instead of just feeding me some crap about coffee I...”

“If I'd told you that I had a surprise waiting for you at Cucinetta's, would you have A) willingly come with me or, B) took off in the opposite direction?”

“You know as well as I do that it would have been B,” Will mutters, glancing at me as a smile finally tugs on the corners of his lips. “This, in turn, means that you already know me too well and... I don't really know which one of us this should concern more.”

“Concerned? There's far more important things in the world to be concerned about than whether I've worked out how your ridiculously complex mind works,” I respond with a smile of my own. “Which, if it helps put your mind at rest, I still think I'm on level one with another hundred or so levels to go staring me in the face. Now... Look.” I point up the street as the familiar sight of Cucinetta's Italian restaurant comes into view. “We're almost there.”

“Mmm...” Still looking far from convinced that he's going to like what it is in his immediate future, Will releases my hand and, looking down so I can't clearly see his face, begins to fuss with his tie. “I still wish you hadn't...”

A loud, booming voice suddenly calling out, “William!” causing him to fall immediately silent, Will jerks his head up and his eyes widen as a large man with a bushy grey moustache barrels up to us from outside Cucinetta's and grabs him by the shoulders. “William!” he repeats with a gigantic smile. “How about breaking a habit of a lifetime and giving an old man a hug?”

“I... Of course.” His smile almost as big as the man's, Will nods and steps without hesitation into his warm, enthusiastic embrace. “Harry, I...” Too caught up in the emotion of the moment to continue, he hugs his old mentor back before shifting a little away from him and, with a smile still brightening his face, tilting his head in my direction as I stand, hands in pockets and wishing like crazy that I'd had the foresight to capture the moment using the camera on my phone. “Uh... Ethan,” he states breathlessly, gesturing me over, “this, as I'm sure you've already realised, is Harry Longmire. And... Harry, this is Ethan Hunt, my...”

“Friend,” I interject, holding my right hand out to Harry and letting him shake it with the sort of strength and intensity that I haven't felt from anyone for a very long time. “It's a pleasure being able to put a face to the voice on the other end of the phone.”

Still keeping a firm grip on my hand, Harry sizes me up for a couple of seconds as though he's contemplating giving me a hug as well before, with a broad shrug, dropping my hand and giving my upper arm a friendly – if not a little bruising – slap. “Ethan!” he exclaims, still beaming. “Seeing as I'd all but written this one here off as being no longer with us, I can't thank you enough for picking up the phone. Hearing from you almost made my day as much as finally seeing William again does.”

“Harry, I... I'm sorry,” Will murmurs as, embarrassment threatening to mar his pleasure at meeting his friend again, he frowns and scuffs his foot along the pavement. “I never meant to... disappear, but, things, they... got away from me and...”

“There's plenty of time for explanations, hear that, explanations, not apologies, over lunch,” Harry interrupts dismissively as, all but dwarfing him in the process, he slings his arm around Will's shoulders and turns him around to face Cucinetta's. “Come on. I'm starving already, so let's go and get a table.” 

“And on that note,” I state, seeing my exit and knowing, regardless of how much I might like to stay and get to know Harry myself, that I have to take it. “Will, I made the table booking under your surname, so you don't have to worry about missing out in the lunchtime rush. And, Harry, it's really been lovely to meet you but, I'm sorry, I've got to get back to HQ and won't be able to stay and eat with you.”

His face falling with obvious disappointment, Harry pouts – which, given his age, size, and generally overtly masculine appearance, is a sight all in itself – and, all the time keeping his arm around Will, reaches out to once again grab my hand. “Seeing as I was hoping to get to know you too, you sure you can't stay?”

“I'd love to, but our other two colleagues might just hunt me down and kill me if I don't return and conduct the rookie tour with them, so... I really had better be on my way.” I give Harry's hand another quick shake before pulling free and beginning to walk away. “Tell you what, if I survive the tour I'll swing by Cucinetta's when it's over and if you're still here I'll have a coffee with you.”

“You do that.” Apparently satisfied with my answer, Harry lets go of Will's shoulders only to link his arm around his elbow and, before Will has time to protest or even say his own farewells, starts to walk him towards the restaurant.

Not caring that I've just been effectively dismissed, I smile to myself at having arranged a successful – even if I do say so myself – surprise and, with a spring very much in my step, begin to run back to the office. Despite understanding Will's reasons for not wanting to look up Harry in case he didn't like what he found, not knowing the man myself meant that I didn't share his concerns and the second I found the time I didn't hesitate to begin hunting him down. I told myself that if the worst case scenario was realised and he was dead then, simply put, I could always keep the discovery to myself and never mention so much as having looked in to it to Will. That, and, really, I just wanted to know for myself what had happened to the man that had clearly done so much for him. Finding him still alive, and with a daughter he frequently visited living in D.C., was even better than I'd been expecting, and when he reacted with such obvious enthusiasm and delight to my phone call offering to arrange a meeting with Will, I knew then that I'd done the right thing. Sure, I still had my doubts about how Will would react, more to me having stuck my nose in to where he'd just as likely think it had no right than to Harry himself, but it was still a gamble I was prepared to take.

And, having just been fortunate enough to witness the mere beginning of their reunion, I'm very glad that I did. Harry, who was there for him when things were at their darkest, means a lot to Will and I actually credit the man wholly with the reason he's still here today. He not only listened to, but also believed him after Toby's death, and he was there, offering him a new direction to take, after what happened in Boston. Will, admittedly by choice, doesn't have many people in his life, and I like to think that getting back in contact with Harry will be good for him as it should prove to him that, no, he's not forgettable and, yes, there is still someone out there from his past that cares for him.

While not even three weeks have passed since that wild and stormy day when Will made the life changing decision to open himself up to me, he's been industriously moving forward from it every day and, although it's been slow going, what it's also been is constant. Instead of reverting to form and concentrating on keeping everyone at arm's length, he's been remaining in our company and going out of his way to... engage. A quick mission, easy for once in that the locating and the obtaining went perfectly to plan, to Germany killing any idea I might have had in respect to... easing... Will into his new life here in D.C., I half expected him to use work as an excuse to change his mind and push us all away again. Not only didn't he though, but he also, seeing as it was the contacts he'd sourced in Berlin during his years in Europe that we were having to rely on for information, made a point of both explaining his history with them to us and making sure we always knew what he was doing. He also never missed an opportunity to sit next to me, and that more than anything indicates to me that he's not only throwing everything he's got into trying to make a go of things, but that he's also largely succeeding. 

To anyone who takes friendships and a sense of belonging for granted, what Will's both going through and forcing himself to do would be completely foreign to them. Knowing how hard it is for him though, and seeing how determined he is to make a success of it, I can't help but admire him even more as, again, I know just how much what he's doing unnerves him. It's not easy, rearranging your entire life, but if anyone can do it Will can and I feel honoured that he's comfortable enough with our... friendship... to take me on the ride with him.

He'll get there too, of that I'm confident.

IMF headquarters looming into view, I speed up my pace and have barely made it to the bottom of the concrete steps leading up to the entrance foyer when, looking unimpressed and with their arms folded across their chests, Jane and Benji appear in front of me.

“Where the hell have you been?” Jane demands, poking her finger into my upper arm as Benji peers around me for Will. “Those damn rookies are milling in the foyer as we speak and I was beginning to think that you were going to be a no show.

“And, seeing as I'm sure I saw him go off with you, what have you done with Will?” Benji adds, frowning when it becomes clear that he's nowhere in sight. “You're smiling, so I suppose this means you haven't pushed pushed him under a bus, but...”

“But as this is Ethan we're talking about here, who knows,” Jane finishes with a tad of dry humour as, giving my arm another poke, she looks at me expectantly. “So, come on. You may as well tell us if it all finally got too much for you and, in a moment of madness, you... have... shoved Will under the wheels of bus.”

“Why on earth would I want...” Raising my eyes skyward in a long suffering look, I grab Jane's hand before she can poke me again and laugh. “Liking Will a hell of a lot more than I do you at the moment,” I mutter, “you can believe me when I say that he's fine. He's just having lunch with a friend, that's all.”

“A... friend?” Looking dubious at the thought of this actually being the case, Jane glances at Benji before giving me a funny look and shaking her head. “But Will doesn't... have... friends...”

“Yes he does,” Benji pipes up. “He has us. We're his friends.”

“Benji's right, we're his friends,” I reply, lightly touching my finger to Jane's lips before she has time to voice either a question or a counter argument. “He also didn't magically come into existence in that car in Moscow and has been around for a lot longer than we've known him. Now, because of this, he does actually have an old friend and, whether you believe me or not, they're currently having lunch together while we, the truly lucky ones, get to take the tour. So... Come on. Let's get this tedious show on the road and, if he agrees to join us for dinner tonight, you can hit him with all the questions I know you're just dying to ask then.”

“Fine.” Linking her left arm around mine before reaching out and collecting Benji with her right, Jane begins to lead us up the steps. “Forgive me, however, for still thinking the story of you having pushed him under a bus to be the more... believable... one,” she murmurs, laughing. “But, hey, if it's true and he really does have a friend, then I'm happy for him. I'd be happier if he was here suffering with the rest of us, but... Whatever. You're right. Let's just get this crap over and done with.”

Crap... not even beginning to come close to covering how I feel about taking rookies on a tour of the IMF facilities and having to answer tedious question – 'why, yes, I have killed before and, no, I'm not going to tell you how many lives I've taken or what my favourite method is, so stop looking at me like that before I decide to see to it personally that you fail the psych evaluation and never ever get your hands on one of our weapons' – after tedious question, the four hours it takes to drag them around feels like a lifetime and by the time I'm jogging back to Cucinetta's I'm hoping that I never see a single one of them ever again. Sometimes there's one that shows a glimmer of intelligence or that... special spark of something... that tells me they could become a good agent, but not today. Today's bunch all seemed dead from the knees up and the next time I see that idiot in charge of recruitment I'm going to ask him where he dredged them all up from.

Entering Cucinetta's, I scan the restaurant for Will and Harry and spot them at a table by the bar just as, noticing my arrival, Will gets up and walks over to meet me. “Your usually immaculate timing has unfortunately let you down this time as Harry's daughter just called and she's only a couple of minutes away from picking him up,” he announces with evident disappointment as he glances back over his shoulder towards the table. 

“Sorry,” I reply, shrugging – both literally and figuratively – off my own disappointment at not getting to spend any real time with Harry and flashing Will a rueful smile. “Today's bunch of rodents were such a sad and sorry lot if ever there was one that I didn't think the tour was ever going to end.”

“Sounds like I was lucky to miss it,” Will replies as, his expression sympathetic, he turns back to face me. “I... can't say that I'm sorry, though.”

“They were so good that even Benji, and you know he's usually tolerant of these fools, was beginning to look as though he wanted to hit the next one he caught staring at Jane's breasts,” I mutter. “But... Never mind. It's all over for another six months and I'm just sorry that I wasn't able to get back here sooner.”

“Mmm... I'm sorry too,” Will responds, looking down at his watch and frowning. “While it's nowhere near long enough though, you can still go and talk to him for a couple of minutes while I go to the bathroom and settle the bill.”

Nodding, I decide to hold off on asking Will how things went for the time being and, as he heads off in the direction of the men's room, make my way over to where Harry's still sitting at the table. Spotting me just as I'm about to reach it, he stands up and, with the same smile he was wearing earlier still spread across his face, gives me a hearty clap on the shoulder. “Whatever it is you're doing for him,” he declares, looking me in the eye and nodding to himself, “keep it up.”

“Excuse me?” I murmur, the directness of his gaze suddenly making me feel vaguely uncomfortable for some reason. “I haven't...”

“Cut the innocent, 'I don't know what you're talking about' act, kid,” Harry interrupts, closing his hand tightly around my shoulder. “You've known William for, how long, a year?”

“Uh... Thirteen months.” Not, however, that I think that one extra month is going to make any difference to whatever it is he's getting at here.

“Well, I've known him for thirteen years and I'm telling you now that this is the most content I've ever seen him,” Harry responds as he releases his grip on my shoulder and gives it another slap. “Hell, he smiles, and there's a light in his eyes that I've never seen before, and I'm thinking, unless he's finally been knocked unconscious one too many times, that this change for the better has to have something to do with you.”

Wanting to divert Harry's attention from giving me yet another – friendly, granted, but still forceful – slap, I pick his sports coat up from the back of the chair and hold it out to him. “I'm just his friend and team mate,” I reply as, thankful that he got the hint, Harry allows me to help him into his coat. “Any change you've seen in Will is simply down to him.”

“Oh, believe me, I know William only does whatever it is he's decided in that stubborn head of his he wants to do,” Harry replies, giving the table one last look over before beginning to walk in the direction of the door. “What I also happen to know is that he doesn't do anything without a reason, and if he's choosing to change now it's because he feels he's got a good reason to do so. I'd say maybe I was wrong, and you've got nothing to do with it, but I know that I'm right.” Pausing, he looks over his shoulder to make sure I'm dutifully following him. “He watches you, you know. When you ran off this morning he looked over his shoulder and kept an eye on you until you'd been swallowed up by the crowd, and the second you walked through these doors here a minute or so ago he knew that you were back.”

“He...” Knowing when I'm beat and that continuing with trying to deflect Harry isn't going to achieve anything, I shrug and, getting in front of him, open the door. “Will, he's... I can't deny that he's very special to me,” I murmur, letting Harry past before stepping out on to the street behind him and pulling the door shut. “I'm just along for the ride though. I can be there for him if he wants me, but he's the one fully in charge and, again, all I can do is try to ride along next to him.”

“And all I'm asking for you to do is keep trying and don't ever give up,” Harry states, positioning himself directly in front of me and making a very deliberate point of looking me in the eye. “The first time I met William he looked like something you'd cross the street to avoid. Scrawny, big eyes, floppy hair, you know, typical addict. He was clean though, which was unusual in itself, and as he spoke better than most of my fellow agents I thought to myself that I'd give him a chance and listen to what he had to say. Now... Not a day goes by that I'm not thankful for having taken that chance. While what that moronic bastard did to him in Boston was the IMF's gain to the FBI's considerable loss, I hold William in the same esteem as I hold my own sons and I want what's best for him, you hear? And if that's you, then so be it. You're going to be there for him or you're going to have me to answer to.”

“Uh...” Saved from having to come up with an adamant enough response to placate Harry in his role of clearly over-protective father-figure by Will's timely arrival, I settle for simply nodding my silent acknowledgement and stepping back to smile a greeting at Will.

“Talking about anything I should know about?” he queries, giving us both a questioning look.

“I was just telling Ethan here that you're both going to have to join me for a fishing weekend whenever your super busy and super secretive schedules allow for it,” Harry lies smoothly as he shoots me a warning look before grabbing Will for another rough hug. “Seriously. You'll love it. Log cabin. Water. Cold beer. What more could you want?”

“Well...” Extricating himself from the embrace after returning it for a couple of seconds, Will shifts over next to me and smiles. “We'll see, won't we, Ethan?”

While, personally, I've never been a big fan of fishing, if Will wants me to join him on a trip to Harry's log cabin then... I'm there. He just has to name the date. “As soon as time allows for it, we'd love to join you,” I reply. “Just let us know some dates and we'll see what we can do.”

“Will do.” Noticing that a red Ford sedan has pulled into a No Parking zone, Harry waves at the female driver of the car and, with one final slap to my shoulder, begins to walk off. “As there's my ride, I'd better be on my way. It's been great to meet you, Ethan, and as for you, William, don't go disappearing on me again for years on end as I'm telling you now my old ticker just isn't up to it.”

“As I told you over lunch, Harry, I don't plan on going anywhere and you have my word that I'll keep in touch,” Will calls out after him as he reaches the car and opens the passenger side door. “I... promise,” he adds quietly, turning to me as Harry gets into the car and is driven off by his daughter. “As for you... Thank you for my... surprise. It was the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

“What can I say, I'm a nice person,” I reply, brushing off his gratitude and, seeing as he didn't have a problem with it earlier, taking his hand in mine as we begin to walk back to HQ.

“I know that. I know you're a nice person,” Will responds, glancing down at our clasped hands but making no move to pull his free. “It... I don't know. Finding Harry for me and arranging to meet for lunch was just such a fantastic surprise that I can't help but think that... it's just not something I'd ever have thought to do for someone, that... as hard as I try, I... I just can't do this, not... Not in the way you can, not instinctively.”

“Nonsense. If you must know, if I hadn't found Harry alive and well I wasn't even going to tell you that I'd looked for him,” I state, squeezing his hand. “Besides, you're a nice person, Will. Look how you went back to that shop at Heathrow and bought that t-shirt for Benji, the one he clearly wanted but was very loudly trying to talk himself out of.”

“Maybe I just wanted to shut him up,” Will mutters with a shrug.

“Or maybe you just wanted to buy it for him because it was a nice thing to do,” I counter.

“It was only money. Anyone can... buy stuff. What you did was different.”

“It wasn't. You were happy when you saw Harry, and Benji was happy when you gave him the t-shirt. So what if mine only cost me a little time and the price of a phone call, while yours cost fifty or however many pounds. The results were the same. Person A had thought of Person B and had gone out of their way to do something nice for them.”

“Mmm... Maybe. I still think...”

“This isn't something I'm prepared to argue about with you, Will, because in this case you're wrong and that's just all there is to it,” I interrupt as I decide to indulge in my favourite habit of 'if in doubt, just change the topic'. “So... Moving on. We're planning on going out for a meal tonight and you're more than welcome to join us if you'd like.”

“Who exactly is... we?” Will queries, accepting my abrupt change in topic both easily and with good grace.

“Me, Benji, Jane, and Luther.”

“Luther...”

“You've met Luther before.”

“I know. He always looks at me as though he's either trying to work out just what my problem is or... read... me somehow.”

“I wouldn't worry about that, it's how he looks at everyone. Besides, if you'd like to join us I'm happy to run interference between the pair of you.” In fact, knowing that the real reason Luther stares at Will is because he's still trying to work out just what it is he means to me, I suspect it'll be in both of our interests if I do my best to divert his attention.

“I... I don't know.” A set of pedestrian lights flashing red causing us to come to a stop, Will looks at me and sighs. “I... kind of had plans...”

“In that case, forget it,” I murmur, as taken aback by the fact Will has plans for the evening as I am disappointed at the thought of not getting to spend it with him. “If you've already got plans then...”

“They... It doesn't have to be done tonight,” he interjects, biting down on his bottom lip as he tries to decide what it is he'd prefer to do. “If you'd like me to come to dinner...”

“Of course I'd like you to come to dinner but, seriously, if you want to stick to your plans then you stick to them. If it helps though, it's not going to be a long night as Luther's got an early, and I mean... really... early flight to Tokyo in the morning.”

“So... It could be over by, say, nine?”

“Given that Luther can never sleep during a flight and likes to get a good night's sleep in before taking off, I wouldn't be surprised if he was already tucked up in bed by then. But, again, don't change your plans if you don't want to. We can always go out for a meal at another time.”

“Although my plans were for something long overdue,” Will replies, nodding to himself as he tightens his hold on my hand and shifts even closer to my side, “I still have to eat and putting it off for another couple of hours isn't going to hurt. So... Thank you, I'd love to join you for dinner.”

Pleased that I'll get to spend the evening with Will after all, but at the same time wanting to be positive that he's okay with his decision, I rub my arm gently against his and query, “Are you sure? Don't think you have to change your...”

“As I was... hoping... you might be free to help me with my... uh... plans,” Will murmurs, blushing slightly as he cuts me off, “maybe we could, if you'd like, still get a start on them after dinner.”

“While the answer is, of course, yes, I'd be happy to help you with your plans,” I reply, hiding my joy both at Will wanting my company for some reason and the fact he's now reached the point where he's even willing to request it behind a quick tug on his hand to get him moving again as the light turns green, “are you at least going to tell me what these plans actually are?”

“You know those boxes in my basement, the ones full of my parents' things that I've never opened since I packed them up all those years ago?” he replies, giving me a worried, doubtful look as though he's fully expecting me to change my mind and knock him back. “Well... I'm thinking the time may have come to start going through them, maybe... Maybe even with the idea of using some of the items in the house to give it a, I don't know, more lived in look. I... I can do it by myself, of course, but... uh... if you'd like to help I... I'd appreciate it.”

It sounds like only a small thing, wanting help to unpack a few boxes, but to Will it's far more than that and, again, I'm honoured that he already feels capable of asking me. To Will it's... not only about requesting assistance or inviting someone into his home, but it's also about the boxes and what they represent. Opening both the boxes themselves and himself to the memories that will come flooding out of them is one thing, but to be contemplating using some of the pieces to make his home more... homely, well, that's something else again as it just has to mean he's starting to feel more settled and content with his life.

“Despite no one ever having wanted my advice on interior design before,” I smile, coming to a stop so I can look Will in the eye, “I'd love to help you. In fact, I can't think of a better way to spend an evening.”

“I...” Biting down on his lip again, Will blushes an even darker shade of pink than he did a second ago and looks down at his feet. “I bought some of that German beer you prefer so... uh... if you'd like to have a drink while helping I don't mind, that is... you're welcome to stay the night if you either don't want to drive or... would just like to stay anyway...”

Reading between the lines again and marvelling how far Will's come in such a reasonably short period of time, I cup his cheek in the palm of my free hand and gently apply just enough pressure on it to get him to tilt his head far enough back to look at me. “I'd like that,” I murmur. “I'd like that a lot, actually.”

“Good.” Smiling as his doubt finally dissolves and he realises that things are okay, that, yes, he's actually done the right thing, Will leans forward and plants a soft kiss on my cheek. “I'm glad you said that, as... So would I. I'd like it a lot, too.”

~ end ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise for the delay in posting the last part. Between banging my head against the fic I'm currently struggling to write, issues with the wifi and a cat that successfully demanded I get rid of the laptop in order to let her go to sleep on me, I... didn't think I'd ever get around to posting it either!
> 
> But, oh well... It's here now and I hope it was worth the wait!


End file.
